


Muscle Memory

by kijilinn



Category: Cable (Marvel) - Fandom, Cable and Deadpool, Deadpool (Movieverse)
Genre: Angst, Aromantic, Chronic Illness, Chronic Pain, Gen, Getting over loss, Grieving, Humor, Multi, Team Building, Time Travel, X-force - Freeform, aromantic OFC
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-09-01
Packaged: 2019-05-15 14:46:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 53,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14792513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kijilinn/pseuds/kijilinn
Summary: Nathan Summers is here to stay. Whether he likes it or not, he's gonna have to make a go of 21st century life. Wade and the rest of his crew of X-Force miscreants are determined to make it the best go possible. Even if Cable doesn't want help.WARNING: Contains major spoilers for Deadpool 2. Takes place four months after the events of Deadpool 2.





	1. Chapter 1

Sometimes when he woke up in the night, he forgot.

He forgot the pain. He forgot the unending pressure on his mind. He forgot the centuries separating him from his wife, from his son.

He forgot his wife.

He forgot his son.

He forgot the virus eating at his flesh.

That was the most dangerous forgetting. To forget the techno-organic virus was to forget to control it, forget to push it back to its limits. To forget to direct the virus circuits enhancing his vision rendered him blind in the left eye. To forget to direct the virus’s growth was to be consumed by it, eventually to become no more than a very destructive toaster.

Nathan Summers couldn’t afford to forget.

Four months had passed since he had sacrificed his way home to save Wade Wilson’s motor mouth. Four months trying to acclimatize to the 21st century, the archaic mores and even more ancient technology. Four months of writing love letters to Hope and wondering where to put them.

As foolish as Wade was, X-Force seemed to be working. Cable had tried to stay out of it at first, but the constant phone calls, emails, text messages, and random visits to his apartment had finally worn him down. He wasn’t even sure how Wade had managed to text him and call him at the same time, then be outside the door without any evidence of a phone. He suspected Latchkey’s involvement.

After the spectacularly botched first mission, Deadpool and Domino had insisted on opening up the roster for interviews again. Cable wouldn’t have been present at all if not for Domino’s sage nod and her promise that she “had a good feeling about this.” The girl was still breathing, so her lucky feelings hadn’t failed her yet; he showed up. 

The first five had been as ridiculous as he had expected: a French Canadian skier with super speed. A runty-looking guy who said he could suppress other mutants’ abilities. He had offered to demonstrate, but both Cable and Deadpool shut him down quickly. Cable had felt bad about the little girl on the run, though. She made hand-held time bombs and was just trying to get away from her abusive home. Deadpool had made a case for her, but Domino had stubbornly nixed it, saying they didn’t need the legal hassle of a custody battle. She had brought her to Professor X, though. The Scottish werewolf would have been an interesting addition, but she brought fleas to the interview and nobody could get on board after that. The teleporter with the German accent and the big eyes almost got his vote, too, but Deadpool said she smelled like matches.

Dopinder had volunteered again. At that point, refusing him was pointless and they had signed him on officially. Unlike the French-Canadian, the Kentucky native, Sam Guthrie, had a disarmingly humble attitude and an innocence that appealed to Deadpool’s sense of humor. His power was similar to the skier: superspeed but he used his to fly at jet speeds. Cannonball was his chosen moniker, which had only delighted Wade further.

And then there was Latchkey. She had introduced herself as Jane Malley, a low-level telekinetic with a talent for picking locks. She was older than the others, in her mid-thirties with a smile that seemed to know more than it let on. Domino had said yes before either of them had managed to get a word in edgewise and Wade had let it ride. 

Latchkey made Cable nervous. It was the way she seemed to always be there when he turned around. She wasn’t following him or lurking or anything sinister. She just seemed to always be there, usually with whatever it was he happened to be looking for. The star-head screwdriver. The knife he preferred for tomatoes. The axle grease, which she had insisted on calling lube and grinned when he blushed. She flirted like Wade--and with Wade, for that matter--and that had hardly calmed his nerves. The sexual tension flying around their headquarters was almost tangible and he was sick and tired of it.

Wade had somehow managed to strongarm Xavier into renting them a complex of offices and apartments around a central planning room and kitchen in downtown Manhattan. Cable wanted to say he hated the place, but the noise and activity of the big city was more comforting than the near silence in Westchester. He had turned his apartment into something resembling a machinist’s shop with a bed in the corner. While his cybernetics were organic, they did interface with purely mechanical add-ons: he had been experimenting with bluetooth for almost a month now and had already installed a USB3 port he hadn’t told anyone about for fear Latchkey would try to charge her phone off of him.

Living in such close quarters meant that the sexual tension didn’t end at the office. Deadpool had moved into an apartment he was sharing with Blind Al for reasons no one wanted to explore too thoroughly. Domino spent about as much time in Latchkey’s apartment as her own. Dopinder had kept his apartment farther out. That left Sam and Nathan looking at each other warily over coffee most mornings.

Like this morning. 

Sam reached for the sugar and stopped, his eyes flicking up to study where Cable sat with the newspaper. “Go ahead,” Nathan intoned. “I’m done with it.” The younger man hesitated, then took the sugar bowl, spooned two helpings into his coffee and started to dip the spoon into his mug to stir. “Swear to god, you put that spoon back in the sugar bowl after you’ve used it, I will string you up by your toes. The little ones.” Cable turned the page without looking up. “Nobody likes old coffee sugar.”

The spoon went back into the sugar bowl as clean as it had come out and Cable tried to suppress a smirk. Sam was a good kid, for all that he liked to threaten him to watch him squirm. It briefly occurred to him that maybe Wade and Jane did the same thing to him with flirting, then dispelled the thought with a snort. 

Movement drew his eye and Cable turned his head slightly to watch as three globes of sugar slowly rose out of the bowl, formed into compressed sugar cubes and began to juggle themselves over the surface of the table. Latchkey had been practicing. “Looks good, Jane,” he said. “Your control is getting better.”

Almost immediately, the cubes disintegrated and fell to the table in a lump. “Fuck it, Cable,” Jane sighed. “You had to go and distract me.” She dropped into a chair across the table from him and started sweeping the sugar into her hand to try again. Cable smiled but didn’t comment on the strain in her face and the beads of sweat the small exertion had drawn on her skin. While her control was getting better, her power would always be small.

“Morning, sourpuss,” Domino caroled as she stretched her arms over his shoulders to hug him around the neck from behind. Nathan pressed his lips together in an ironically tolerant line and she grinned. “Is it just me or did you actually just smile?”

“Not at you.” Nathan reached for his coffee which had long since gone cold and sipped at it as if it was still steaming. He knew he should have brewed another pot before the girls got up; his face needed ceramic armor and additional caffeine. 

Domino pouted, then turned back toward the coffee machine. “Seen Wade yet?”

“Naw,” Sam put in. “I think he was up late last night.”

“Aren’t we all?” Jane muttered to her sugar. She had started using her fingers to form little squares to aid her telekinesis. Cable resisted the nearly overwhelming urge to nudge the sugar into actual cubes and fuse them so she could practice juggling without having to hold the shape. He could spare that little bit of power without letting anything advance or fail. He knew better: Jane would cold cock him for it. 

“Not all of us were howling at the moon until four AM,” Sam shot back and Jane gave him a sly, sideways grin and pursed her lips at him. 

“Sorry, were we making too much noise, Joe Bob?”

Domino draped herself across Cable’s shoulders and moaned dramatically, “Oh, Jane! Jane! Yes…”

When Sam’s face flushed a brilliant shade of pink, Latchkey and Domino both started to laugh and Nathan snorted in irritation. “Leave him alone,” he finally snapped. “We all start out embarrassed.”

Latchkey raised her eyebrows and leaned forward on the table, a curious and calculating smile on her face. “Yes, we all start out that way, don’t we? But some of us move on. Why are your cheeks so dark, Nathan? Never moved on?”

It was a poor choice of words. She didn’t know any better. She didn’t know what he’d sacrificed, just to keep that damn avocado-face alive. She didn’t know what she was suggesting he move on from.

He saw the flash of light from his own eye reflected in hers and saw Jane jerk back, her face shocked and stung. He hadn’t meant to sting her like that, to inject that tiny bit of pain into her thoughts like a needle. Just enough to make her think twice about suggesting that he move on from anything. “At least someone has some shame around here,” he hissed through his teeth and stood up abruptly from the table. “I have work to do. If Wade needs me, or a job comes up, I’ll be in my apartment.” He paused beside the door to the kitchen to add, “Anyone other than Wade knocks, there will be pain and it won’t be mine.”

“You’re the boss, boss,” Domino said softly and Nathan exhaled sharply, not quite a snort, before he walked out.

 

***

 

Afternoon found Nathan tinkering with his arm. He had been reshaping a circuit for the potential addition of external memory chips, something that had been suggested to him ages ago and he’d been thinking about ever since. The ability to archive problematic memories without letting them affect his sleep would be bliss. In theory, he could shut himself off at night and just sleep. It would leave his powers free to manage his condition without having to suppress all the memories he didn’t want to dream about, too.

Memories like Hope. He felt his jaw twitch and consciously relaxed it. It was hard to relegate his wife and son to nothing more than memories now. Their deaths had been bad enough, but now he knew they would survive, that his son could have a chance to grow up. He wished he could be there to see it. The best he could do was leave things for them to find someday, traces of him and his love for them. 

Locking those memories away in cold circuitry seemed inhuman. He supposed it was. A computer moves its memory around, saves things, overwrites what’s not needed. Was he more machine than man now? Had the virus spread so aggressively already as to affect his thinking?

The electric prod he had been using to manipulate the circuits slammed up against the wall and Nathan glared at it as if it had flown there under its own power. He growled at himself, then put his forehead down in his hand. His human hand. 

He didn’t want to be human anymore. It hurt too much.

 

***

 

The knock came a little before someone would be wandering in the kitchen thinking about dinner. Nathan had given up on his arm and was lying stretched on the couch, his right arm draped back over his eyes and the mechanical one resting on his chest. It only cost him a tiny burst of energy to check the identity of his visitor and exhaled. Sometimes, he was actually glad to see Wade’s irritating face. “It’s open.”

He listened to the door open, then shut and the sound of Deadpool’s feet crossing the floor. “Now that is a pretty picture,” Wade announced and Nathan opened one eye to glare at him. He was standing at the foot of the couch with his fingers up in a frame clearly centered on Nate’s crotch. “Nice definition, decent lighting…”

“What do you want, Wade?”

Nathan didn’t have to be able to see Wade’s face to tell the other man was grinning under his mask. “Heard you were looking for me.”

“Not exactly.” Nathan closed his eye and settled with his face in the crook of his arm again. He let out an anguished WHUFF when Deadpool dropped himself comfortably onto his stomach, one leg crossed over the other. “Fuck you, Wilson,” he wheezed.

“Oh, see, there it is.” Wade rocked sideways to lean his elbow in the middle of Cable’s chest. “I see what you’re doing here. The less you want to talk to me, the farther away from a personal name you get. My keen instincts and Linn’s fondness for psychology textbooks are showing.”

With a grunt, Cable shoved his guest off of his stomach and sat up again. “Okay, fine. What the fuck do you want?”

“It’s not about what I want. It’s about what you want, handsome.” Wade leaned close and Cable could almost hear his eyelashes flickering against the inside of the mask as he batted his eyes. “Spill it, tough guy. Before the writer starts checking her word count again.” 

“You’re the weirdest asshole I’ve ever met,” Nathan said, shaking his head. “And I’ve met some real assholes.” With a sigh, he dropped his feet to the floor and rubbed his hands over his face. “I did want to talk to you, actually. About Latchkey and Domino.”

“The girls giving you wet dreams again?”

“I’m serious, Wade. Are you ever serious?”

Wade paused to consider. “I think I was once. Didn’t suit me. What’s the problem?”

Cable studied his hands, comparing the lines of his right to the grooves and planes of his left. “They kept Sam awake last night. I know you don’t think there’s anything wrong with in-team relationships, but at least consider telling them to knock it off.” He glanced up at Wade, who was watching him with what seemed to be a serious cast to his face. “It’s tiring being the bad cop all the time.”

After a moment, Deadpool nodded. “I’ll talk to them. Sam’s got enough on his plate to keep him awake without hearing Jane and what’s-er-name--

 

\--really? You forgot her first name?” 

_ Shut up, Wade. My wireless is out. I’ll fix it as soon as I’m back online. _

“I guess I should be glad I’m the Wade Wilson Deadpool. At least you’d remember my fucking name.”

_ C’mon, dude. I’ve got a fic to write. _

“Yeah, yeah, I’m going. Amateur.”

_ It’s fanfiction. By definition, it’s amateur. _

“I just expected better from you.”

 

“--Neena having quite that much fun. Sure that’s all that’s on your mind?”

Cable slowly ran the palms of his hands together, thinking. “Can I ask you something?”

“Other than the obvious question you just asked? Shoot.”

“When you were in prison with Russell and they made you wear those collars…”

“I started dying again, yeah.”

Cable looked up to meet Deadpool’s gaze. “Was it easier?”

Wade was silent for a long time and Nathan started to wonder if he would answer at all when he turned his head and reached down to pull up the mask. “Was it easier to die than not die?” Wade asked him quietly. His dark eyes were more serious than Nathan had ever seen them before as he added, “It was hell. I could feel everything failing like someone was poking me with a stick every time something died. I could feel my lungs going out. I could feel my liver, dude. Nobody wants to feel their liver.”

Without breaking eye contact, Nathan murmured, “That doesn’t answer the question.”

“Yes,” Wade finally answered. “Yes, it was easier. I usually feel all that shit--mutant healing factor doesn’t make you immune to pain. With the collar, I felt it all and knew there’d be an end point. So, yes. It was easier.”

Nathan nodded slowly and returned his gaze to his hands without speaking. He wondered how fast the virus would overtake him if he stopped fighting it. Days? Weeks? Hours?

“Look, man.” Wade shifted over and leaned up against Nathan’s shoulder. It wasn’t like his usual sprawling, overdramatic, hypersexualized--Hey!--invasions of personal space. Just shoulder-to-shoulder contact with his position mirroring Nathan’s. “I know there’s something you’re holding back. Like, literally holding back. I’ve seen you strain with your arm sometimes. What’s going on? I swear, I can be serious for more than five seconds. I won’t give it up.”

Cable considered how to explain, then shrugged. “I’m holding back an infection. I’m telekinetic. It takes everything I’ve got just to keep the infection from spreading.” He closed his eyes and rubbed his hands over his hair, letting his head hang down with his hands behind his neck for a second. “It hurts, Wade. Everything hurts. Back in my own time, I could hang on for my family, my wife, my kid. Now, I know they’re safe and there’s nothing I can do on this end to make them safer. What do I hang on for now? Why bother?”

“If you snuff it, can I have your gun?” Nathan glared at him and Wade held up his hands in surrender. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Force of habit.” He settled back against the big soldier’s shoulder with a sigh. “I guess I can’t tell you that, Nate. I’ve got every reason to want to bite it: Vanessa’s on the other side waiting for me. But I know it’s not time yet because she told me so. I’ve still got stuff to do. I like to think you’ve still got stuff to do, too. There are more wives and sons out there who need to be safer.”

Nathan let out a long sigh. “It’s harder when it’s a general goal.”

“Make you a deal.” Wade bounced off his shoulder and Nathan raised an eyebrow. “I’m betting I can live longer than you. You’ve got your infection, I’ve got Stage Four cancer. We’re both actively using our powers to keep from dying of it. I’m betting I can last longer. So no giving up, no chickening out. You die ahead of me, big boy, and I will taunt your ass for eternity. I will find you in hell just to laugh at you.”

The mental image finally pulled a chuckle out of Cable and he nodded. “Alright. You’re such a fuck up that there’s no way you won’t die before me. I’m actually good at survival.” He raised one eyebrow. “For bragging rights?”

“And your gun.”

“But I’ve already got my gun.”

“You die, I get it. Deal?”

Nathan laughed and shook his head. “Fine. Bragging rights and custody of my gun. You’re going to lose, little man.” He stood up from the couch and Wade came up behind him, pulling his mask back down under his chin. Before Deadpool could leave, Nathan added quietly, “Thank you.”

“We chronic deathers have to stick together,” Wade said with a shrug. “Any time.”


	2. Chapter 2

It was several hours later when Nathan found himself wandering the halls of the compound with a vague idea toward spending some time in the practice room. Maybe an hour or two with a punching bag would exorcise the lingering future. He was just passing the kitchen when he heard Wade saying empathically, “End announcement.”

“Fine, if we have to,” Domino sighed like a stage diva and Nathan grinned to himself. Wade was playing bad cop for a change. 

A long pause followed and he couldn’t resist stopping long enough to see if anyone else responded. When the pause had become uncomfortable, Wade’s smug voice asked, “What’s the matter, Jane? Plot got your tongue?” Nathan slowly raised one eyebrow and leaned in closer to listen.

When she spoke, Jane’s voice was drawn and wary: “You are…”

“Don’t say it,” Wade snorted.

“...crazy batshit insane?”

“The term is mentally ill. Delusional, actually. Believe I’m a character in a comic book...and a movie...two, actually. And now fanfiction! Go me! I’ve arrived!” Nathan slipped a little closer down the hallway until he could see inside the kitchen as Wade stood up to refill his coffee mug. “You should wake up long enough to see the inside of this girl’s head. You think I’m crazy…” He shook his head and made a few disapproving noises between his lips. In a pregnant pause where Jane didn’t respond, he sighed again and waved a hand. “Forget it, Jane. I’m just messing with you. Why’re you so spooked?”

Jane frowned and shifted her hips, crossed her arms nervously. “It just… that was really out of the blue.”

“Consider the source,” mumbled Sam from the table.

“I’m like Wikipedia like that,” agreed Wade. “Good place to start the research but you better not let anyone know the reference came from me or you’ll get laughed out of school.” He turned abruptly and started to leave the kitchen, so Nathan spun to flatten his back to the wall around a corner. As soon as he had completed the move, he realized how foolish it looked and sighed, glaring at the far wall as Wade walked up next to him to lean against the wall. “Hi, Nathan! Nice to see she decided repurpose that dialog. It’s some of her better stuff, you know.”

Nathan eyed him warily and slowly raised one eyebrow, to which Deadpool grinned and pulled his mask down again. He wandered off, still carrying his half-full mug of coffee and leaving Nathan to shake his head. “So weird,” he muttered to himself as he walked down toward the kitchen. With Wade’s announcement, there was no point in hiding his presence anymore. He stepped into the kitchen and stopped, discovering Jane, Neena, and Sam all watching him expectantly. Whatever he had been planning on doing vanished from his mind in a little puff of anxiety and Nathan felt his teeth click together when he closed his mouth. He pinched his lips and tapped the side of his index finger over them, trying to remember. “I had a reason for coming in here, I swear.”

Jane grinned at him and Nathan answered with a half-twisted smile of his own. She could be infuriating and nerve-wracking sometimes, but he did like Jane. “Getting old?” she asked him playfully.

“I guess.” Sometimes he felt centuries old and sometimes he forgot that he wasn’t in his twenties anymore. Either way, age was a subjective thing; technically, his birth year would make him 37, only a few years older than Jane. Subjectively, he had lived closer to 40, most of it two-thousand years in the future.

 

_ “Boo! Be brave and go for Brolin’s birthday!” _

Shut up, Wade.

_ “Revel in your daddy thing, Linn.” _

I don’t have a daddy thing. Shut up.

 

“Is that my cup?” Nathan pointed to the mug Jane held to her lips. It was a rhetorical question, considering it had been a gift from Wade and read “World’s Best Cyborg Daddy.” She pulled it back to look at it and grinned with a shrug.

“Did you want it back?”

Did he? Slowly, Nathan tilted his head to study her and asked, “Why is it you’re always using my things?”

Jane’s eyes widened and she looked away from him, her cheeks starting to flush. “They’re usually the ones closest,” she hedged, “and it didn’t make sense to dirty another mug if you were done with yours.”

“Don’t the Japanese have a thing like that?” Sam asked, suddenly interested.

“Indirect kissing,” supplied Domino with a grin. She pursed her lips and made smooching sounds which only made Jane blush harder. “Shall my lips touch what his have touched so recently!? Oh, such intimacy!”

Nathan tried not to grin and watched as Jane’s face turned beet red. It wasn’t often he got to see Latchkey off-balance. “I’ll have to see if Wade remembers where he got it,” he finally said, letting her off the hook as he reached to take the mug back. “We can get you one that says ‘I pick locks with my brain.’”

“Ha ha,” Jane snorted at him, but she relinquished the mug. “At least let me finish the coffee.”

“Mine now.” Nathan went to the microwave to reheat it and added more from the pot. While he was waiting, he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the counter. “Have any of you been in the training room today? Or have you been down here drinking coffee all day?” Sam and Neena exchanged guilty looks and Jane continued to stare longingly at the coffee in the microwave. He sighed. “I’ll take that as a no. Well, after I finish my coffee--” he leaned on the possessive and Jane made a little whining noise in her throat. “--I’m going to spend some time in there. If anyone wants to work on sparring or weapons work, I don’t mind sharing space or teaching.” As if perfectly time, the microwave beeped and he took out the mug, nodded to the group and walked back out into the hall.

Indirect kissing? 

As amusing as it had been to watch Latchkey get flustered for a change, the subject confused him thoroughly. From what he had seen, Jane had less interest in kissing Nathan as much as making him as uncomfortable as humanly possible. Was that harrassment her way of flirting? Did she pick up his stuff and walk around with it just because it was his? From the way she had responded to Domino’s teasing, if Jane felt that way about him, she wasn’t aware of it herself. 

And if she did…?

Cable shook his head to clear it and took another drink of coffee before opening up the practice room and turning on the lights. This room had been the real prize in Xavier’s acquisition of the X-Force compound. Twice the size of a standard basketball court and almost exactly cubic in shape, as long as it was tall and just as wide. So far, Cannonball had been able to practice short flights inside and as a team, they had been able to practice fight maneuvers that required one member to throw another. Most of those were Domino’s moves, since she was more likely to land on her feet afterwards. Off to one side was a standard lifting array and one entire wall was devoted to climbing technique, studded to the ceiling with artificial climbing holds. Yukio was partial to that, as was Jane and the pair of them had been working on self-belaying when Yukio and Ellie came to visit. 

He walked into the room and set down his mug on the ledge just inside the door, let out a long sigh and smiled. Nathan had always liked the concept of a gym. In his time period, training was done in virtual simulations and hologram rooms. Even something as simple as weight lifting was often handled by machines in some way or another, whether through electrical impulses while at rest or machine-assisted resistance rooms. Maybe it was a genetic throwback to his having been born in the 20th century, but Nathan stubbornly preferred to work his own muscles, train his own body to do the things he could do. He had trained in hand-to-hand combat in simulations, then insisted on practicing with other trainees. He had learned to shoot and maintain his weapons in simulations, even assembling that gun Wade was so fond of through a virtual tutorial, but in a pinch, Cable could still disassemble and reassemble his equipment. All of it.

Cable reached behind his head to grab the back of his shirt collar and pulled it forward over his head in an easy motion, rolled the t-shirt around itself and tossed it towards the corner of the weight room area. He’d warm up with some small stuff, then think about what else he needed to practice. He had just settled on the weight bench to do some bench assisted curls when a voice asked quietly, “Did you want to press? I can spot.”

He looked over his shoulder at Jane and blinked. “No offense, but I think I’ll wait for Wade for that.” 

It was clear from the look on her face that, while he may not have intended to offend her, he still had. “I don’t have to be able to lift your load,” she snapped at him. “I just have to be able to support it enough so you can move it. It’s not about overloading, it’s about pushing the upper limit.” Nate raised his eyebrows in silence and Jane looked away. “But if you’d rather wait, that’s fine.”

“You’re right,” he said quickly before she could turn away. “I’m just used to spotting with Wade. I know he can pull me out if I am overloaded, but I don’t have to lift like that either. It’d probably be healthier if I didn’t.” Jane’s eyes relaxed and he saw her expression ease with his offered apology. “Let me warm up a little first?”

“‘Course.” Jane stretched her arms over her head and then folded them at the elbows so they hung behind her. “I’ll go run some laps. Let me know when you’re ready.” Nathan nodded and watched as she turned away for the rubberized circle of track around the outer edge of the practice room. Once upon a time, she had told him she had run marathons and half-marathons until a knee injury had knocked her out of the game. Now, she only ran short distances: 10ks for the most part but she had pushed herself and run a 25k race a few months back. It had not gone well. She had great form and decent speed for an unenhanced runner and Cable allowed himself a few minutes to just watch her circle the track. “Some warmup!” she shouted at him as she passed, pulling a grin to his face. 

Once he had finished his usual routine of wrist, forearm, biceps and triceps, shoulders and back stretches and warm-ups, Cable waved a towel to catch Jane’s attention and she slowed to a walk. She wasn’t breathing hard, but Nathan couldn’t help but notice the slight limp in her right knee. “You should have that checked out,” he told her, nodding at her knee. “It hasn’t been the same since the 25k, has it?”

Jane made a face and shook her head. “No, but I hate to go in to a doctor. They always ask so many weird questions. I’m still not on a registry anywhere and I’d rather stay that way.” The mutant registrations were still mostly volunteer, but every year the government pushed them a little harder. Given the relatively low level of Jane’s powers, she could probably skate by without having to admit to it. Eventually, someone was going to notice Nathan’s Alpha-level telekinesis and he really wasn’t looking forward to that conversation. “Ready?” Jane asked, pulling him back to the present.

“Yeah.” Nathan rolled back on the bench and studied the bar over his head for a minute. He had already loaded it before she came over to just behind what he usually pressed for regular sets. When Jane nodded to him, he lifted the bar and started counting. 

 

***

 

He spotted for Jane when he was done. Her load was less than a quarter of his, but still impressive enough for an unenhanced human. When she finished, she rolled herself up with a low groan. “I need to do that more often,” she muttered.

“All you’ve gotta do is ask,” Cable smiled. “Did you have other plans?”

“I was going to try climbing for a while,” Jane said with a wry grin, “but my arms are kind of like noodles now. I might run for a while, though.”

“Watch that knee.”

“Yes, mother.” They grinned at each other, comfortable in this banter and far more relaxed than either would have felt with the rest of the team around. After a moment, Jane added softly, “I don’t mean to steal your stuff. It’s just...handy. And I think we like similar things.”

Cable nodded. “Could be. So none of this indirect kissing bullshit?”

“Please,” Jane laughed. “If I wanted to kiss you, you’d know.”

They both stopped. The easy conversation faded and Nathan cleared his throat, the first to look away. “Good to know,” he said quietly. “Last thing I need right now is kissing.” He hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but there it was and he glanced at Jane’s face just long enough to see the surprise there. “Do you mind company on the track?” he asked, redirecting the conversation as quickly as he could.

“No.” Jane shook her head and gave him a wary smile. “As long as you don’t mind getting lapped regularly.”

“I’m kind of counting on it,” Nathan smiled. “It’s no surprise to me that you’re faster. I run like a fucking orangutan.” He flapped his arms a little. “All limb and no grace.”

“Is it related to your lack of neck?” Jane prodded with a familiar light in her eye. 

Nathan pursed his lips in a low whistle. “Low blow, pencil pusher. You’d better hope you’re faster than me…” 

With a trill of laughter, Jane took off around the track and Nathan darted after her. They chased randomly for a few laps, then settled into their respective comfortable paces. As predicted, Jane did a lap and a half for every one of Nathan’s. He found that he didn’t mind: they were fundamentally different athletes. She was built for speed and flexibility. He was built for explosive power and precision strikes. Just like any team, every member had a strength, a focus for their abilities that made them valuable. Jane’s was speed, stealth, and subtle manipulation of her surroundings. He had seen her pull the pin on a grenade still in the belt of an opponent without his ever noticing. She wasn’t the strongest telekinetic, but she could pack a punch when it counted.

And she had a very nice ass. 

Nathan shook his head sharply, surprised at the thought. She did, now that he considered it as she passed him for another lap. But why was it coming up now? Was he really that suggestible as to hear “kissing” and start checking someone out? 

A sour feeling spread in his stomach and his step faltered. It was pointless anyway. She would never be Hope. No one could replace what he had lost. When he passed the weight station again, Nathan exited the track and stood with his hands on his thighs, his head down and his chest heaving. He had taken the realization like a gut punch. He needed to go before Jane started asking questions. The grief was still too raw for him to talk about and now it was tinged with guilt. He glanced up at the track through blurred eyes, made sure Jane hadn’t seen him yet, then collected his shirt from its pile in the corner and slipped out of the gym as fast as he could.

 

***

 

One minute, Cable had been ahead of her on the track. The next, he was gone. Jane craned her neck to scan the training room, wondering where he had vanished to. She noticed his shirt was gone from where he had left it near the weights and she slowed to a stop. Had he heard an alarm she hadn’t? She tilted her head to listen, but no alarm reached her. It wasn’t like Nathan to rabbit from anything, least of all a training session. Finding that she was actually a little worried, she walked to the computer intercom. “Call Nathan Summers.”

“Nathan Summers has turned off communications.” 

Jane blinked in surprise at that. Nathan never turned off his comm set, not even to shower. The sense of worry spread and she said, “Call Wade Wilson.”

The intercom blinked a few times before Wade responded. “Yo.”

“Cable bailed on a training session.”

Silence answered her and Jane felt a small smile on her lips. She’d finally found something that would genuinely worry their leader. “Called him?”

“Comms are off.”

“Fuck. That can’t be right.”

“That’s what I said.”

Jane could hear movement of fabric and Wade’s voice was briefly muffled as he said, “What did you do to him, Jane? Did you break my buddy?”

“Break him!?” Jane protested. “I just ran the track with him and lifted weights.”

“Damn, woman, don’t you know the training montage is poison for jocks?” Wade cried. “Meet me outside his apartment. I’m guessing he’s gone to ground.” He abruptly ended the call and Jane chewed her lip for a second.

“I didn’t know he was that fragile,” Jane commented to herself as she wiped her face and neck with a towel and headed for the residence hallway. 

When she caught up to Wade, he was dressed in sweatpants, a t-shirt and an utterly shapeless zip-up hoodie, maskless and concerned. “C’mon, buddy, open up,” he was calling through the door. 

“Leave me alone, Wade.” Cable’s voice was heavy on the other side and Jane was surprised at the note of grief in it. She tried to catch Deadpool’s eye, but he wouldn’t look at her. “I’m just tired.”

“Bullshit,” Wade snapped. “There’s tired and there’s booking a room in hell so Wade can tease me for eternity. Open the damn door, Nate.”

The door opened and Nathan glared at Wade, his expression exasperated. “I’m tired, not suicidal.” He did a double-take when he saw Jane and his face flushed brilliantly before he looked away from her. “Why is she here?” he hissed quietly, though not quietly enough to escape Jane’s hearing. She bit her lip, stung. Had she actually done something? Had she broken him?

“Plot movement,” Wade replied sourly and pushed both hands into Cable’s chest, forcing him to take a step back. With one step, Nathan was slightly off balance and then just allowed himself to be shoved the rest of the way into his apartment. “She’s the one who called me. What the hell, man?”

Nathan looked from Wade to where Jane stood in the doorway, hovering and uncertain. “Not in front of her,” he whispered. “Please, Wade.” The two men stared at each other for a second, then Wade looked back at her.

“I’m okay,” Jane said quietly. “If you need to talk without me there, that’s fine. I just wanted to make sure you were okay, Nathan. I was worried.” Nathan still refused to look at her and Jane tried not to feel shrunken by the slight. “I… I need a shower anyway. I’ll just go.” She heard Wade call her name, but didn’t look back as she rushed down the hall to her own apartment and shut the door. 


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Warnings for angst.**

**[Wade] And extensive and graphic massaging of canon, both comic and movie. I’m curious about those new characters, Linn. When are we gonna see them?**

**[Linn] Maybe in the Thanos story.**

**[Wade] *whines* Unfair!**

  


[Originally posted by fandom-imagines-for-fans](http://tmblr.co/ZtAj6j2YBEECT)

 

“You impossibly adorable and yet still manly and rugged moron.” Wade turned to glare at Cable and swung the apartment door closed behind him. “You are really bad at this.”

“At what?” Nathan asked in exasperation.

Wade half-stormed past him into the room. “Getting to second base. Getting to first base! Touching a bat to begin with. Finding the stadium. I think you’re still wandering around the parking lot.” He opened Nathan’s small fridge unit and rooted around inside until he found a beer, opened it and began to drink. “The things I do for you, man.”

“I am not trying to get to any base with Jane.” Nathan started to turn away and his eyes found the empty coffee mug sitting beside the sink, still unwashed. He twitched. “I’m married.”

“Is that it?” Wade’s expression softened and he sighed. “I’m sorry, Nate. I guess I didn’t think--”

“That I’d still be thinking about my wife?” Cable snapped at him and Wade winced. “That I’d still feel married even when I know I can’t see her again? We were married for six years, Wade. We had...have a son who I will ALSO never see again.” He stepped up until he was uncomfortably close to Deadpool and glared. “Sex may not mean much to you, but it does to me. I’m not looking to get laid. I’m sure as hell not looking for another relationship.”

“I’m sorry,” Wade said quietly. “Truly. I am. I wasn’t thinking.” Nathan turned away and picked up one of the electrical tools from his workbench, rolling it back across his fingers. “I know you’re not big on the public demonstration of feels, but do you want to talk about it? About them?”

“What does it matter?” Nathan paused the rolling of his fingers to glare at the tool in his fist. “It’s just reopening the wound.”

“Dude, the wound is still spurting. I consider this first aid.”

In spite of himself, Cable smiled. “I know every man says this about the love of his life, but she was beautiful. Her name was Hope. I found her in a foxhole, pinned down by one of the newer classes of Sentinel. Her and her team. I think there were four of them still alive then. Hope, Ivory, Manassas and J’tue.”

“Did you just spit on the floor?”

Cable snorted. “J’tue was a Shi’ar renegade, one of the ones who made Earthfall without getting slaughtered by the Sentinels first.” He paused and waved a hand at the couch. “Do you want to sit down?”

Wade smiled.

***

Cable told him everything he could think of. He told him about Hope and her team, how they had escaped the firefight, how Hope’s smart mouth and irreverence had driven him mad with frustration until he realized how much he loved her. He told him about their wedding, their discussions on whether or not to have kids, the decision to try and how excited they had both been when Hope had turned up pregnant. He told him about Tyler’s birth, how it had changed everything and clarified so much more.

_“I’ll say. Movie versus comic canon-bending versus making it up from whole cloth at its finest, Linn.”_

Not right now, Wade. Seriously. Besides, my blog’s name is “noncanon and proud.” I might as well go with it.

_“That’s my girl.”_

Shut up, Wade.

When he started to get to the point that had sent him into the past, Nathan slowed down. He looked at Wade, who had finished three more of his beers and was still listening intently. “None of this really matters anymore,” he said softly.

“Nathan, you lovable, musclebound doofus,” Wade smiled. “Of course it does. Tell me.”

“It doesn’t, though. It doesn’t happen. We… you changed what happens with Russell. Hope and Tyler survive.” Nathan’s eyes found the restored teddy bear sitting on the bookshelf to one side of the door. 

“But you still lost them.” Wade leaned forward and loosely folded his hands together. “I mean, you don’t have to talk about it. But if it helps…”

Cable considered for a while then stood and retrieved the last of the beer, handing one to Deadpool and keeping the other for himself. “I don’t want to talk about the event, actually,” he admitted as he sat down again facing Wade. “There’s been enough grief in my life at this point that reliving the bad parts when I don’t have to seems masochistic.”

“There’s a big market for masochists,” Wade replied. “If you go in for that, you could probably make a decent sideline in porn.” At Cable’s irritated glance, he smiled. “I would apologize, but I’m really not sorry for that one.” They sat in silence for a few minutes before Wade asked, “What happened in the gym?”

“Present conflicting with past conflicting with future.” Nathan smiled thinly into his beer. “I’m still human even if I’m grieving my marriage.” When Wade just raised a scarred eyebrow, he shrugged. “I can admit Jane looks good when she runs. It’s just the awareness that I think that is harmful to my mental health.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time you went crazy over a woman,” Wade pointed out. “I think I’m jealous.”

Nathan closed his eyes and leaned back in the armchair. “I’m not ready to let her go, Wade. I still love Hope with everything I’ve got. She was… is… the mother of my son and everything I ever wanted in a partner. How am I supposed to get over that?” He opened his eyes again to look at Wade. “You’re not over Vanessa. And you never will be. That’s how I feel about Hope.”

“True,” Wade said quietly. “But that doesn’t stop me from enjoying the company of the people I care about who are still alive. Since, y’know, I do actually care about some people.” He set his half-empty beer aside to frame his argument with his hands. “You said I don’t take sex seriously, but you’re wrong. I take sex as seriously as I take life. Life’s huge and crazy and it doesn’t take much to make it vanish entirely. I’m still breathing when I shouldn’t be and that hurts like hell, especially when Vanessa isn’t and should be. But I’m still here. I take things as I see them. The world is fucking random and doesn’t really follow any kind of rules or laws, no matter what we puny humans try to do to force laws on it. Sex isn’t that different. It doesn’t always make sense or follow a set pattern, but when there’s attraction, to say there isn’t is like staring someone with a pulse and active lungs and saying ‘You’re dead.’ Life keeps going. I guess I feel like sex does, too.” He paused, then added, “and love.”

“You really do remind me of her,” Nathan said with a small smile. 

“Considering how much you still love her, I will take that as a compliment.” Deadpool picked up his beer again and finished it while Cable slowly rolled his empty can between his hands, thinking. “Get some sleep, Nate,” Wade said as he stood up. “Maybe things will look better after a time jump.”

“A what?”

“Never mind.” Wade swung himself out of Nathan’s doorway by the door frame and waved. “Good night, handsome.”

***

When Jane woke up the next morning, she found Neena curled up around her, big-spoon. She didn’t remember the other woman coming in last night, but she wasn’t about to complain about the feeling of her arms around her. “Where did you come from?” she asked softly.

Neena stirred and pushed her face deeper into Jane’s hair. “Bed was empty. Got lonely,” she mumbled softly. “You okay? You were crying in your sleep when I got here.”

“Liar.” Jane stretched and rolled over to face Neena, running her fingers through her hair and tracing her cheek. “Yeah, I’m fine. My workout didn’t exactly go as planned and I think I fucked up.”

Neena raised her eyebrows. “Fucked up?”

Jane nodded, then paused. “Do you know Nathan that well? Wade made it sound like he’s made of glass or something.”

“Glass cannon,” Neena chuckled. “I just know he’s from the future and he only had enough juice in his equipment for two jumps: one in and one back.”

“So why is he still here?”

Neena’s eyes were serious. “He used his return jump to save Wade. Blocked a bullet that would have killed him. It’s a long story, but that’s the short version. He saved Wade but now he can’t go back home. I guess he had a family.”

Jane lay quietly for a while, then closed her eyes. “And I told him to move on.”

“When?” Neena gasped, her eyes almost glittering with schadenfreude.

“When we were teasing Sam?” Jane blinked and sat up in the bed, rubbing her hands through her hair. “I’m surprised he managed to be civil in the gym. No wonder he didn’t want me to spot him.”

Neena followed her when she stood up to get dressed. “You worked out together last night?”

“Yeah.” Jane discarded her tanktop in favor of a fresh bra and t-shirt. “We lifted for a while, then ran the track. When I looked up, he was just gone, though. Vanished and turned off his communicator. Freaked the fuck out of Wade when I told him.”

“Cable turned off his communicator.” When Jane nodded, Neena slowly shook her head. “There’s a first. And I thought he hated to run.”

“He said he ran like a fucking orangutan,” Jane said, unable to suppress her grin at the memory. “He wasn’t far off.” 

“He likes you.” Domino looped her arms around Jane’s waist as Jane pulled up a pair of jeans. “He wouldn’t have stuck around if he didn’t.”

“That’s bull,” Jane snorted. “Cable doesn’t like anyone, not even Wade. Maybe especially not Wade. He tolerates all of us and only barely most days.” She swatted Domino’s hands away from her waist so she could fasten her fly and button. “You’re just playing off of Wade.”

Domino hugged a little tighter and Jane sighed, leaning her head back on her friend’s shoulder. “I didn’t say he wants to fuck you,” she whispered. “I said he likes you. I think he likes you and it scares him.” When Jane didn’t answer, Neena rocked slowly and kissed her cheek. “I think you like him, too. Wade only seems to spout shit like he did yesterday when there’s really something going on. It’s like he knows something we don’t.”

“He’s just crazy,” Jane murmured. “He wants you to think he knows something.”

“He might be unpredictable, but he’s still perceptive. Maybe he saw something you missed.” Jane remained stonily silent and Domino sighed. “Love you,” she said and planted another kiss on Jane’s cheek and let her go. “I’m glad we’re one of those friendships sex doesn’t mess with.”

“Some friendships are founded on sex,” Jane said with a smile and squeezed Neena’s fingers. “I want to check on something. I’ll see you later.”

“Sure thing, gorgeous.” Neena waved and Jane waved back before they walked in opposite directions down the hallway.

***

“Your block is getting lazy.” Nathan strike to Wade’s right then reversed to kick for his ankles. 

“Just like

_“Nope. Nope. It’s not working, Linn. Try something else.”_

I’m having trouble moving forward. I’m sorry, okay?

_“Turn off Star Trek and maybe we can get somewhere. And mute your damn Discord!”_

But the button keeps flashing.

_“Ignore it and write, girl! I know you’ve got plans. I can see ‘em and they’re great. Just hurry up already.”_

“Where’s your mug?” Wade poked the back of Cable’s hand on the table. “I wanna see that mug in every scene from now on, Daddy.”

Cable raised one eyebrow and shook his head. “Don’t call me that. Things are weird enough without that.”

“You can say that again, Daddy.” Wade collected his pop tarts from the toaster and spun away with a little wave. 

The mug next to his hand was a different one from his usual and Nathan eyed it thoughtfully. It was a black mug covered in brilliant blue butterflies that spread upward on the mug before transforming into a cobblestone road. The text read, “Desna’s blessings.” He wasn’t sure why he had picked it from the cupboard this morning, but he liked it. Whoever or whatever Desna was. He picked it up and sipped his coffee before returning to the paper.

Distantly, somewhere in the compound, a phone rang. It connected to the whole-team cell circuit and made the phone sitting on the counter behind him vibrate obnoxiously. Nathan reached back to pick it up. “X-Force headquarters, Cable speaking.”

At first, he thought it was a bad call, one of those robotic automatic calls that tried to tell him about car insurance. Then, a female voice said carefully, “Nathan? Summers?”

“Yes?” 

The voice made a soft, nervous throat-clearing sound and then she continued, “This is Jean, at Xavier’s? He asked me to call and invite you and your team to the mansion for the weekend. He said some of the students here would benefit from training with X-Force in the Danger Room.”

“Ah.” Jean. Jean Grey. Nathan closed his eyes and shook his head sharply to clear it. She wasn’t Redd. Not yet, anyway. Someday, she’d know him as a child, when she and his father came forward two thousand years to raise him. The loops of time were enough to make anyone dizzy and he knew Jean had been uncomfortable with him from the moment she had met him, partially due to his resemblance to Scott, his father. “Yes, I think that would be fine. I’ll check with the others and call back later. Would that be alright?”

“Yes, sir.” They both stuttered to silence. His stepmother as a teenager. It was still hard to figure out. “Thanks. I… uh… I’ll talk to you later.”

“Bye.” Nathan tried to make the ending as kind as possible, but it still sounded abrupt in his own ears. As he set down the phone, he triggered his communicator. “Call all members.” When the communicator beeped to alert him to the connection, he said, “Group invite to Xavier’s for the weekend. Anyone in?”

“I will tap that silvery ass so hard!” Nathan closed his eyes with a sigh. Wade would be the first to respond.

“I’m in,” Neena answered more sedately. 

“Me, too,” echoed Sam.

“I can drive,” Dopinder offered.

“Another country heard from!” cheered Wade.

“Yes, Mr. Pool,” Dopinder said cheerfully. “I am still around. How are things there?”

Nathan tried not to smile. Dopinder never ceased to make him grin, usually without trying. He felt a little bad about it since a lot of it had to do with how incredibly dedicated the younger man was to Deadpool and the idea of X-Force, even though he himself had no mutant abilities at all. “Jane?” he called. “Coming?”

“Yes, Daddy, please!” Wade cried in falsetto. 

“Do you ever shut up?” Jane’s voice finally added to the conversation. 

“Nope,” said Wade and everyone could hear the grin on his face. 

“I think I’ll stay here,” Jane said. “I’ve got some stuff to catch up on.”

Something in Nathan’s chest sank and he sighed, rolling his eyes at himself. “It’s not like you don’t live in the same fucking building, Summers,” he muttered to himself without engaging the communicator. Into the conversation, he added, “He offered the use of the Danger Room.”

“I’m in.” Jane’s reply was so fast that she practically cut him off. 

“Full house,” Deadpool caroled. “We’re going on a road trip!”

Nathan smiled to himself and cut off the connection. He looked at the butterfly mug with his coffee and sighed. He just couldn’t seem to make himself pick up the one Jane had used this morning. He finished his coffee, rinsed the mug and set it to dry, then turned back toward his apartment. 

Admitting to Wade that he had noticed Jane’s positive qualities had had the effect of haunting him most of the night. He had slept fitfully, dreams of chasing her around the track merging together with memories of some of the few good times with Hope, when they had been free enough to be a family, to have fun without being afraid or on guard. The restlessness had made it harder to focus on his telekinesis and he had finally given up on sleep around daybreak. At the moment, the only thing keeping him focused enough to both walk and avoid further infection at the same time was the coffee. At least he would have another night between this and trying to keep from dying in the Danger Room.

“Nathan?” 

Halfway to reaching for his own door, Nathan sighed and closed his eyes. Jane. “Yeah?” he responded without turning toward her.

“I’m… I’m sorry for what I said,” she said quietly. “About moving on. I didn’t know what I was talking about.”

“I know.” They’d been talking about him. He knew it happened, but it was a little surreal to have clear evidence of it. Nathan turned to smile at her, trying to shake the strangeness of acknowledging that she knew something about him he hadn’t told her. He found it hard to keep track of himself most of the time. He still wasn’t used to being known. “Who told you?”

“Neena.” Jane was hugging one arm in front of her with the opposite hand, a gesture that made her look much younger than she was, nervous and uncertain. “I’m sorry.”

Nathan shook his head. “It’s not your fault. I’m sorry for stinging you. I’ve usually got better control than that.”

Jane looked surprised. “That was you?” He smiled thinly and nodded. “I didn’t know you had that kind of… I thought you were just--”

“Human?” Nathan chuckled at the embarrassed expression on her face. “Telekinetic. I don’t use it much if I can help it.” What a fucking lie. He was only constantly using it. Though the truth was still there: if he could avoid demonstrating his power externally, he would.

“Oh.” Jane’s face flushed and Cable smiled at her. She was really cute when she blushed. Thoughts of Hope needled his kidneys again and he let the thought go. “That’s why you’ve been so willing to help me train.”

Not the only reason, certainly, but he did know plenty of tricks to help focus telekinesis like hers. “I’m willing to help anyone train,” he said. “It’s kind of what I do.”

“When you’re not time jumping around history, killing people.” Nathan flinched and looked away and Jane gasped. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. It just came out.”

“Spending too much time with Wade,” he said with a weak smile. “It’s what I do now.”  _Since I can’t train my own son to use his abilities when they manifest. Since I can’t watch him grow up. He pushed away the thoughts and sighed, rubbing his temples with one hand._  “I’m sorry. I really didn’t sleep well last night and I’m thinking about trying to catch a nap before we leave for Xavier’s.”

“Of course,” Jane scrambled to find words. “I just wanted to apologize.” When Nathan nodded, she gave him a quick, nervous smile. “Have a good nap.”

“Thanks. I’ll try.” He watched her turn and walk away, then closed his eyes and leaned against his door. He missed Hope. 


	4. Chapter 4

**And now, a word from your friendly neighborhood Deadpool.**

_Friends, I want to present to you the fanfiction writer. Now, this particular fanfiction writer has a nigh obsessive need to adhere to known canon which is why she nearly always has a Marvel Universe Wiki tab open on her browser. Given the discrepancies between movie and comics canon, this has given her some serious headaches which has in turn given birth to her own form of canon. For those of you familiar with Linn’s other work, an example of this is her incredibly detailed depiction of the Alpha Centauri people based on a single frame of comic artwork that suggests the Centaurians are marsupial._

_To that end, please forgive Linn any deviations from canon, comic, movie or otherwise. She’s internally consistent and that’s all we can ask._

**A/N: Warnings for angst.**

  


[Originally posted by sophieturner](http://tmblr.co/ZEoCcq2YTdiHJ)

 

“Theeeeeeeee wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round. The wheels on the bus go round and round, all the way to town.” Deadpool took a breath to continue and made a strangled sound instead when Cable elbowed him sharply in the throat. “Cruel, man,” Wade wheezed. “Couldn’t you have at least used the squishy arm?”

“Thing has a mind of its own sometimes. Got away from me,” Cable replied without looking at him. “Sorry.” An hour pressed into a minivan back seat with Wade singing in his ear had gotten the better of him, but a smile still crept over his lips when Wade leaned on his shoulder to whine. Dopinder had the benefit of being closer to the main radio speakers: whenever Wade had increased his volume, the Bollywood station got louder, too. Sam, who had stolen shotgun seat, and Dopinder sang along cheerfully, Dopinder occasionally correcting Sam’s pronunciation. Jane and Neena were snuggled together in the middle seat, apparently both asleep. Nathan envied them a little. 

He tried not to think about how much he envied Neena, actually. Domino had her head pillowed on Jane’s shoulder while Jane leaned against the window, wedged between the back of her seat and the door. They both looked extremely comfortable, unlike the crowded quarters in the back seat. Jane shifted and made a small sound before wrapping both arms around Domino and snuggling her closer. Nathan forced himself to look out the window again. 

“They’re just friends, you know.” Wade’s voice was pitched low, still rough from Nathan’s throat strike. “Well, friends who fuck. A lot.”

“I don’t need to know that,” Cable replied just as quietly. 

“Y’know, Neena might be up for a threesome. You never know.”

“Not funny. Not going there.” Nathan turned his head just enough to glare at Wade, his bionic eye flashing gold. “Still married.”

“Sorry.” Wade settled down, still with his head on Nathan’s shoulder. “So, that Shi’ar chick, what was her name?”

“J’tue and she was hardly a chick. She had grand-fledglings.”

“That’s right, the Shi’ar are bird people, aren’t they? I keep forgetting that, what with the boobs.” Wade shifted and snuggled up, working one arm around Nathan’s back and the other across his chest. “Tell me a story, Daddy.”

Nathan glared down at him. “Get off of me, Wade.”

After a long few seconds, Wade whispered, “Pretend I’m Tyler. Just for a minute or two.”

“Not funny.”

“I’m not laughing.”

Nathan looked down and sighed. He could only see the top of Deadpool’s head, the red and black hood obscuring every potential facial expression. When Wade didn’t say anything else, Nathan let his head lean back against the seat and shifted to loop one arm around Wade’s shoulders. “There was a traveler,” he started quietly, “who never stopped moving. He went from town to town on horseback, stopping long enough to eat and rest and keep going. Wherever he went, butterflies followed. Big blue ones that glowed in the moonlight. If you could catch a butterfly in your hands without hurting it, it would grant you a wish for letting it go.” 

“Wow,” Wade whispered, “I didn’t think you actually would.”

“Shut up,” Nathan hissed back. “You’re ruining it.”

“Wishes and butterflies,” Wade responded, snuggling back in. 

Nathan reached and put his hand on Wade’s head, closed his eyes and missed his boy. When he wanted it to be, his imagination was extremely good. “I saw him once,” he murmured. “The butterfly man. There have been stories about him for years. Slim and Redd told them to me when I was a kid. I thought they were just stories until I saw him. I mean, who has a horse in a world like mine? Who has butterflies? He had a hawk then, too. That was something that came in the later stories. Nobody really knows why the hawk, but she was sitting on his saddle, calm as anything.” He paused, still letting his thumb trace an arc on the red and black hood. “But the butterflies were everywhere. One of them was right in front of me, so I caught it.” He mimed catching something in a cage of his fingers. “Never hurt it.”

“What did you wish for?” 

“I wished for peace,” whispered Cable. He could feel Deadpool building for a comment and smacked the back of his head. “And quiet and for you to just shut up for five minutes and leave me alone.” He gave Wade a short shove to the other side of the seat. Wade went, but Nathan didn’t miss the way his mask curved over his mouth. It looked like a contented smile.

***

“You came in a minivan.” Negasonic Teenage Warhead--or more comfortably called Ellie--stood on the wall that overlooked the courtyard of Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. Her girlfriend, Yukio was leaning on the crenelation beside her, grinning down at them. “Can you get any lamer?”

“Hi, Wade!” she called down, waving as the team unloaded. 

“Hi, Yukio!” Wade yelled back and waved. “And there’s my main squeeze!” He walked up to Colossus and hugged the big Russian mutant. “How’ve you been, big guy?”

“It is good to see you, Wade,” Colossus said in a tone that implied that ‘good’ was a relative term. He reached back to pull Wade’s hand off of his butt without comment. “And you, Neena, Sam.” He tried to take a step forward to shake hands with Dopinder, but Wade had yet to relinquish the hug around his waist and Piotr sighed. “Nathan.”

“Piotr,” Cable replied with a nod. His eyes slid to the doorway behind Piotr and he felt his spine tighten: there were several teenagers peeking out at them, all eyes and elbows. One of them had brilliantly red hair in a long fall over her shoulder and his own teenage doppelganger stood just behind her, eyes covered with a red shield. He was never going to be comfortable in the same room with Scott Summers. 

“Away with you, spying scamps!” Dr. Henry McCoy scattered students like leaves as he exited into the courtyard and strode toward the group outside the minivan. “Jane! Neena! So good to see you!” The girls vanished into the circle of his furry, blue arms. “Dopinder! My friend!” Beast cheerfully made the circuit of X-Force, hugging and shaking hands with everyone until he came face to face with Cable. “Nathan.”

“Doctor.” 

McCoy held out his hand and Nathan reached to take it, thankful the man was right-handed. “You’re looking well.” 

“For the most part,” Nathan agreed. 

“Any advancement?”

“Going straight for the medical analysis, doc? Don’t I at least get a hug first?”

Hank chuckled and reached to hug Nathan. “I’m sorry. You’re my patient first and I forget myself sometimes.” He paused to look around at the other members of X-Force. “Do you have time for a check-up while you’re here?”

“Sure.” Nathan had almost gotten used to Beast’s clinical perspective on him, the fascination the doctor took with the progression of his infection and his efforts to control and use it to his benefit. “After dinner?”

“That should be fine,” Beast said with a nod. “Are you staying long?”

“The Professor invited us for the weekend. Considering how eager some of the team is to pull out the stops in the Danger Room, it made sense to accept for the entire time.” Cable looked up toward where Jane and Yukio were attempting to scale the rough brick of the wall. “Harnesses,” he yelled.

“We’re fine!” Jane yelled back. 

“It’s like herding cats,” he sighed and Hank laughed.

“So has it been, so forever shall it be and unto the end of days.” He patted Cable on the shoulder and added, “Come and make yourselves at home. It’s good to have another team in the family and more family at home.”

Nathan smiled as Hank walked away, then murmured to himself, “And good to have a home.”

***

Professor Xavier had made sure there were guest rooms available and X-Force settled into them, two to a room: Sam and Dopinder, Latchkey and Domino, Wade and Nathan. After Nathan had thoroughly threatened to mutilate Wade if he bugged him in the night, Jane watched the door shut on them. They had left the city a little after lunch, putting them in Westchester in time for dinner and she was feeling hungry. “Want to raid the kitchen?” she asked Neena.

“It’s almost six o’clock!” Neena protested from her spot on the bed. 

“I know. C’mon, it’ll be fun. I think I still remember all the back ways.”  
Neena rolled onto her stomach to study Jane. “That’s right. I forgot you said you went here when you were little.”

“Just a few years,” Jane agreed. “When my parents realized I could get by without showing anything stranger than flying paper clips, they sent me to public high school.” She reached and pulled on Neena’s hand. “C’mon, come with me! I want to show you.”

“Show me what?” Neena laughed, letting her friend pull her to her feet. 

“Anything,” Jane grinned. “Just come with me.”

Together, they darted down the hallways of the mansion, dodging past students and teachers alike. The only one who paid them any attention was Yukio, who waved and Jane waved back. “This way,” Jane whispered and pulled an ornately wrought iron grate from a passage in the wall. She stuck her head in and stopped abruptly with a thud. “Ow.”

“Ow?” Neena asked.

Jane sat back, rubbing the top of her head. “Apparently they filled that one in.”  
“We leave the grate to catch sneaky alumni.” Colossus smiled at them, his arms crossed over his chest. “It is good to see you, Latchkey. It has been many years.”

“Yeah, your voice hadn’t changed yet,” Jane grinned back. She reached up and Piotr folded her into a hug. “How’s Illyana?”

“Quite well, _spasibo_.” He gestured and they joined him in the hallway as he walked toward the teachers’ dining area. “Limbo remains under her control. I miss her, though.”

“Of course.” 

They walked in comfortable silence for a moment, then Colossus asked, “How do things progress in X-Force? Has Cable settled into leadership at all?”

“Some.” Jane and Domino exchanged a glance and Jane continued, “He’s a good leader. He and Wade get along like cats and dogs, but they make it work.”

“Cats and dogs that were raised together, maybe,” Neena snorted. 

“I was referring to a fundamentally different approach to humor.”

“As in, Deadpool has one and Cable doesn’t?”

“That’s just unfair,” Jane said hotly and then did a double-take at the amused expression on Neena’s face. “He has a sense of humor. It’s just--”

“Hidden under eighty layers of boiled leather and starched cotton?”

They had reached the dining room and Colossus cleared his throat to catch their attention. “Are we ready to eat? Or shall we argue some more.” He paused and added, “You two belong on Wade’s team.” When the girls exchanged mutely gleeful expressions, he sighed and pushed open the door.

Dinner amounted to something just shy of a food fight between Wade and Ellie. More than once, Wade would wind up to throw something only to have it levitate briefly over his hand and land on his plate again. After the third time, Jane let her eyes slip to Nathan’s face and saw the quiet smirk there. She nudged his peas into a smiley face and the smirk became a grin before he glanced up to meet her gaze. She grinned back. 

Once the dinner plates had been licked clean--mostly by Wade--the team members stood and began drifting their separate ways. Yukio tugged on Jane’s sleeve and whispered, “I know some great climbing places. Want to see?”  
“Maybe later,” Jane said with a grin. She had already seen Nathan standing to go. 

“Okay. Bye, Jane.” Yukio hopped in the air and waved over her head. “Bye, Wade!”

“Bye, Yukio!” Wade yelled back.

Jane turned to scan the room, only to discover that Nathan was standing almost within arm’s reach, his attention focused on her. She opened her mouth, then closed it again, feeling her face flushing. “Cute,” he said quietly when Yukio had moved out of earshot. “The thing with the peas.”

“Thank you,” she smiled back. “Nice move with the potato.”

“It was either that or spend the evening cleaning up with Wade hanging from the chandelier.” Nathan looked up as a few more people exited the room and Jane was surprised to see that he was starting to flush. “You sounded pretty eager to hit the Danger Room. Interested in taking a short run later?”

Jane opened her mouth and closed it again a few times before she managed to find words. “Are you sure?” she half-squeaked. She cleared her throat and glanced at his face, recognizing the embarrassment and mounting discomfort in his expression. “Sure, yes. When?”

“Half an hour?”

“Make it an hour and a half.” They both jumped and looked guiltily at Hank, who stood nearby with an ironic smile on his face. “I’m a doctor, Nate. I can smell someone avoiding an appointment like a shark scents blood in the water.”

“Appointment?” asked Jane in spite of herself and it was suddenly Hank’s turn to look guilty. 

“The cybernetics,” Nathan explained, tapping his left temple briefly. “I get headaches sometimes. Hank’s been nice enough to help me out since I’ve been here.” Jane nodded slowly. It sounded flimsy, but she wasn’t about the poke holes in it. “Hour and a half? Meet you there?”

“Sounds good.” Jane smiled and patted her stomach. “Maybe it’ll give me a chance to digest this food baby.” Nathan’s eyes dropped down to follow her hand and Jane blinked when she realized he was blushing again.

“You’re hardly sporting any kind of bump,” he murmured quietly. The awkward pause that followed stretched and he cleared his throat quickly. “Shall we, Doctor?”

Jane watched as they walked away, then looked down at her own belly again in puzzlement. “I’m never going to understand how his brain works,” she muttered.

“That’s because it’s more than ten percent mechanical at this point,” Wade said, making her jump.

“Jesus, I thought you were somewhere else!”

Wade clapped a hand on her shoulder. “I appreciate the compliment, but I’m but Jesus’s poor Canadian cousin, Pierre.” He gave her a little shake. “Go sleep off your food baby, Kwikset. There are still plot points to hit before the big reveal.” Before she had an opportunity to respond, he swaggered off with a little backward wave.

***

“I’m sorry, Nathan. I assumed she knew.” Hank held the door open so Nathan could go into his lab and office, then closed it after them. “I should have been more discreet.”

Cable smiled thinly. “Because the information that both of their team leaders are dying would set X-Force completely at ease. Don’t worry about it, Hank. I understand.”

Hank made a face but didn’t respond beyond waving an open hand toward the exam table. With a sigh, Cable shed his vest and t-shirt before climbing onto the table and waiting. Beast handled the techno-organic hand and fingers, manipulating the joints and examining the way the metal fibers played against each other like muscles. He worked his way slowly up Nathan’s arm to his shoulder, occasionally using a small sensor to take measurements. When he was behind Nathan, he made a small sound and Nathan felt him tapping the sensor down his spine. “Can you feel that?” Hank asked him quietly.

“Yes.” Nathan tilted his head over his shoulder slightly and asked, “Should I not be able to?”

“The skin is scarred here,” Hank explained, tracing a finger along the left side of Nathan’s spine. “It looks like the infection has moved under the skin and is digging deeper along your spine. Without an x-ray, it’s difficult to tell how far it’s gone and to what effect.”

Nathan hummed in the back of his throat and took a moment to resettle his thoughts. He delved along his spine, examining the shape of the virus and where it had spread. It had been extremely subtle along his spine and he felt foolish for not having seen it sooner. “It’s trying to tap into my spinal column,” he said quietly. “I swear, Hank, sometimes I think this thing is alive and actively trying to resist my pushing it back. I never saw this coming.”

“Technically, it is alive,” Hank replied and put a hand on Nathan’s shoulder. “Do you want to try to push it back on your own? Or should I talk to the Professor?”

Shame washed through him and Cable huddled a little deeper into himself. “I’m stretched thin enough as it is. If I try to push it back, it’ll break loose somewhere else.” He closed his eyes in frustration. “I think it’s getting stronger.”

“Or you’re just tired.” Beast squeezed his human shoulder. “I’ll talk to Charles about getting you some time with Forge and perhaps a few of the younger telekinetics.”

Jean’s wary face flashed through his mind and Nathan shook his head. “No, leave the kids out of it for now. If Forge can neutralize it for a few hours, I should be able to push it back, at least along my spine.”

“How have you been sleeping?”

“It comes and goes,” Nathan admitted. “The nightmares aren’t as frequent, but they’re still there.” 

Hank sighed. “Any other patient and I would prescribe a sleeping aid or some kind of anti-anxiety, but I daren’t suppress your mind at all. I wish there were more I could do for you, my friend.”

Nathan stared down at his mechanical arm and drew his hand into a fist, watching the metallic fibers shift against each other. “Yeah,” he sighed softly. “Me, too.”

***

Really? You’re going a whole chapter without giving me grief?  
 _“Hmm? Oh, you’re talking to me now. Yeah, I guess I didn’t have anything to say.”_  
There’s a first.  
 _“I got most of it out in dialog. Thanks for the story, by the way. Nice recycling of old material.”_  
I figured it wouldn’t hurt. It’s not like anyone who reads this is going to recognize Hawkriders. It just seemed to fit Nathan.  
 _“Speaking of fitting Nathan--”_  
Okay, that’s enough of that.  
 _“Did we make the chapter quota?”_  
Not quite, but I still need to edit. I can probably add another 200 words to description somewhere. Take a break, Wade.   
 _“I thought I was. Later, Linn.”_


	5. Chapter 5

One of the truly genius aspects of the Danger Room was that it didn’t always have to be dangerous. Cable had settled into his usual ungainly running pace and watched as Latchkey stretched her legs to race ahead of him on the wide Irish moor. It was one of Professor Xavier’s favorite personal programs, all grey skies, and open spaces. No one had explained fully how they were able to run distances in the Danger Room and still get the physical effects of it, but he wasn’t about to complain. He knew it was pretty unlikely he’d ever get to run with Jane in Ireland.

She really was a joy to watch. Jane didn’t hide her reactions when she was running, her face full of excitement and flashes of euphoria as she hit her stride. Her motion was smooth and steady, the kind of running designed to eat up long distances with the kind of inevitability that had made humans terrifying hunters to prey used to short sprints. Cable was still aware that his own running looked nothing like hers. He ran bowlegged and with his arms too tightly tucked to his sides so the elbows flared. At one point, Jane circled back to him and had to stop running entirely to double over herself with breathless laughter. “Oh, honey,” she gasped in a pitying voice usually reserved for naive young adults being taken advantage of by predators.

“Shut up,” Nathan sputtered as he stopped beside her. “I’m doing my best.”

“Give me your foot,” Jane chuckled and Nathan blinked as she tapped the back of his ankle. He automatically lifted it and stood on one leg while she examined his foot and the fit of his shoe. “For one thing, you need different shoes if you’re going to be running much. Combat boots really aren’t made for this.” She let him go and then stood facing him, her eyes taking in the angle of his shoulders and his posture. Nathan felt himself standing straighter. “Do the cybernetics make one leg longer?” she asked, her tone concerned. “You list to the left.” She lifted one hand and angled it to parallel his shoulders.

“I guess I hadn’t noticed,” Nathan admitted with a shrug. “Does it matter that much?”

“Hell yes,” Jane replied. “It’ll kill your back in the long run, even if you never run distances. Just standing off kilter like that is bad for your spine.”

His spine. Nathan tried not to react but felt it in his face anyway. “Yeah?”

Jane watched his face in silence for a moment. “Yeah,” she said quietly. “You already having troubles with your back?”

“Sort of,” Nathan said with an ironic smile. Maybe when he had some time with Forge, he could work on adjusting the length of his bionic leg. The last thing he needed was his own body sabotaging his efforts to stay human.

"Been to a chiropractor?”

“Wouldn’t know what to do with me,” Nathan chuckled. “Half of my back is metal.”

He had meant the comment to be lighthearted, but the look on Jane’s face was concerned. “What happened?” she asked in a small voice. “I mean if you don’t mind me asking. Were you in an accident?”

Nathan took a long breath and studied her, wondering if he was ready to actually talk about this with someone outside of a medical or technological field. “I don’t want to freak you out,” he admitted. “It isn’t a fun story.”

“Not like the butterfly man.”

He felt his face heating up. “You heard that?”

Jane grinned. “I’m never fully asleep in a car. I try but it just doesn’t work. Too much movement and noise around me.” She paused and rubbed her hands together. “I thought it was sweet. Is it true?”

“Yeah.” Nathan shifted his feet and put his hands on his hips, trying to find some position that didn’t make him feel so vulnerable. “Yeah, I saw the hawkrider and wished like an idiot on one of his butterflies.”

“Wishes aren’t stupid.” Jane’s voice was earnest and she looked up at him quickly. “Dreams aren’t stupid. Having hope isn’t stupid, either.”

Nathan flinched at the sound of her name, the guilt spreading in his gut again. What was he doing here, running with this woman for whom he had already admitted his attraction, at least to himself? He was still a married man, even if Hope wouldn’t be born for another two millennia. “I should go,” he whispered in a low voice.

Jane followed him and put her hand on his arm. “What did I do? Nathan, please, tell me what I did. I didn’t mean to hurt you but I can see it in your face. I just want to stop hurting you.” Her voice shook a little and he turned back to look at her. “I don’t really mean to hurt anyone,” she whispered. “Tease, sure, and sometimes I get a little carried away. But I don’t want anyone genuinely hurting because of something I did or said.”

“It’s not you.” Nathan sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. “I’m just… not adjusting well to some things.” He looked at her over his fingers and tried not to see the concern on her face. “Jane, I’m married. I’ve been married for six years to a woman who won’t be born for another two thousand years.” He swallowed hard on the emotion and added, “I’m never going to see her again. I miss her and I miss our son. I’m homesick as hell and every time I start feeling like maybe this can be home, I…”

Jane sighed softly. “You don’t have to spend time with me, you know,” she offered in a small voice. “I don’t want to make this harder on you, Nathan.”

“The thing is…” Nathan swallowed and tried again. “The thing is, Jane, I like spending time with you. I like being around you. I like _you_. For all you drive me crazy sometimes when you’re not, you’re easy to be around. You make me smile and I don’t smile for much anymore.” He studied her face for a second, then continued, “I just feel incredibly guilty wanting to spend more time with you.”

Jane was blushing brightly and she tucked her chin for a moment before peeking back up. “You… like being around me?” When he nodded, she blushed even brighter. “For fuck’s sake, Cable,” she whispered, “you’re making me blush.”

“I can see that.” He felt one side of his mouth lift slightly in a smile. “Is it a good blush, at least?”

“Yes,” she sighed. “It’s a good blush. I’ve enjoyed spending time with you, too. It’s been nice to have a running partner who can’t keep up with me.” Nathan raised an eyebrow quizzically and she grinned. “It reminds me to back off my knee.”

“Glad I’ve been helpful.” They paused and Jane shifted nervously, hugging her arm to her chest again in that oddly young gesture he had noticed before. “I’m still trying to figure out how to be friends with people,” Nathan finally said softly. “I’m used to the chain of command and the pressure to finish a mission and get everyone home safely.”

“You and Wade seem to do okay.”

Nathan chuckled. “Well, if that’s what friendship looks like… I suppose we are.”

He tried not to jump when Jane touched the back of his hand, his human hand, then looped her fingers around his. “I can be a friend with training wheels if you want.”

Nathan closed his eyes tightly for a second, trying to purge his own reaction to her touch. He didn’t want her to be his friend. At least, not just his friend. He wanted to hold her hand, hold her close and kiss her. He wanted to not feel guilty for wanting those things, but Hope still hovered in the back of his mind. Jane was not Hope and never would be. He wanted Hope. But he wanted Jane, too. “I don’t know what I want,” he lied.

Jane’s fingers tightened on his and Nathan looked at her. “For starters,” she whispered, “friends don’t lie to each other.” He sighed and let his shoulders slump a little, frustrated and almost exasperated. Jane tugged on his hand so he would lean closer and when he did, she added, “I really enjoyed spotting you when you were lifting the other night. You look fantastic.”

He could feel his face flushing and Nathan gave her a sidelong glare, waiting for the joking grin. When it didn’t come, he slowly raised his eyebrows. “Thanks?” he managed in a small voice.

“You’re welcome.”

They watched each other for a moment and Nathan felt himself starting to grin, feeling braver. “I might have been enjoying your butt while you run, too.”

“The other night or…?”

He grinned and Jane grinned back. “Both?”

“Both is good.”

Nathan sighed, feeling that same guilt and worry slipping back into his mind in spite of the warm feelings. “This isn’t just being friends, is it?”

“Friends can be physically attracted to each other,” Jane said with a shrug. “I think Neena is hot as fuck and she knows it, but we’re just friends. It’s just…” she shrugged again, “physical. And I care about her feelings, but we’re not in an exclusive or romantic relationship or anything.”

“I’m really not used to that,” Nathan said quietly.

Jane reached and collected his other hand in hers, pulling him a little closer to her. “Do you want to try it?” she asked softly.

“If I try it,” he whispered, “and don’t like it, what then?” Nathan ran one hand down her cheek in spite of his own efforts to keep his hands to himself. “What if I don’t want to share?”

Jane’s eyes were closed and she leaned into his touch slightly, but his words made her look at him. “Then we don’t. That’s the deal with me, Nathan. I’m really interested in you, physically and as a friend. I don’t know if romance is something I want to do, even if I’m capable of it. I’m not exclusive to one person. Never have been, never will be.” Her eyes searched his face and she whispered, “If that bothers you, then we need to stop this. Now.”

It took a monumental effort for Cable to pull his hand from her face and return it to just holding her hands between his own. “I understand. I don’t know where I am right now, really. I think a physical relationship would probably be more confusing than helpful, much as I want it.” He stopped and stared at their hands for a second. “But I do want to be around you, Jane. I like running with you, even if I look like an idiot when I do. I like finding a smile in my peas.”

“Then we’ll be friends,” she murmured. “The kind of friends you are with Wade or I am with Sam. I’d like that.”

“Will you laugh at me when I run?”

“Do you want me to?”

Cable laughed and nodded. “I guess I do, actually. Unless you want to teach me what I’m doing wrong.”

“I can do that.”

Nathan held out his hands, releasing hers. “So, what am I doing wrong, coach?”

Jane grinned and crouched, reaching for his feet again. “Gimme your foot, waddles.”

***

Nathan stretched out on his bed, hands behind his head and his eyes closed. He wasn’t asleep yet, still dressed and on top of the covers. He had a lot of thinking to do. He heard the door open, then shut and Wade walking around the small room, muttering to himself. “Did you know I run on my heels?” Nathan asked into the dimness of the room.

Wade stopped poking through the suitcase he had brought and looked up. “I did not know that. I take it your run with Jane was productive?”

Nathan hummed a positive. “She wants to take me shoe shopping when we’re back in the city. Apparently, military boots are shit for running.”

“Really.”

“Yup. When she got me running on the right part of my foot, I see why.”

“No.” The bed bounced as Wade sat down next to Nathan. “I mean, really. As in, you’re kidding me. As in, what the ever loving fuck, Nate?” When Nathan propped his head on his hands to raise one eyebrow, Wade threw his hands up then let them fall back into his lap. “Shoe shopping?”

“I need shoes,” Nathan said with a shrug.

“Soulmates, running off into the distance in matching Nikes,” snorted Wade.

“My soulmate is in 4935, Wade.” Nathan stretched and sat up again, folded his legs in front of him and let his hands drop in his lap. “Jane’s a friend. We’re working on what that means still, but I know that much for sure.”

Wade arched one eyebrow. “Friends like she’s friends with Neena?”

“Still working that out.” He leaned back against the headboard of the bed with a sigh. “I’m thinking probably not, though.”

“She het-phobic?”

“I’m not even sure I want to know what that means.”

“I still can’t believe you have dubstep but the cishet terminology has fallen out of favor.” Wade shook his head disapprovingly.

“Dubstep never dies,” Nathan said with a smile, closing his eyes.

Wade stretched out on the bed next to Nathan, his hands behind his head and his elbows almost even with Nathan’s hip. “Is there a grand reason why you’re not plowing Miss Schlage into the mattress right now?”

“I told you before,” Nathan said, “I don’t take sex lightly. She’s very comfortable with having sex without necessarily feeling anything. I just…” he shrugged, “I need to feel it, I guess.”

“So put the Barry Manilow on and get feeling!” said Wade.

“Why are you so invested in this?” Nathan asked in mild amusement.

“Because there’s no way in hell Linn’s going to write me gettin’ any of that big silver dong. Mac and Simon and Negan were lucky. Me, not so much.”

 

Just because I didn’t write it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

_“Seriously?! You’ll make it a headcanon?”_

What about your promise to Vanessa?

_“I never promised.”_

She asked you not to.

_“... but… but… you could make her understand? For me? Please?”_

Hmmmm…

 

Before Nathan had an opportunity to respond, a knock on the door interrupted them and Wade sat bolt upright on the bed. “No way.” He hopped up from the bed and went to answer the door, already grinning and was gone in an instant.

“I don’t want to know what just happened,” Nathan informed the empty room with his eyes tightly shut, then cracked one eye open. “Desna?”

 

More like Shelyn or Calistria, but it works for me.

***

Jane curled up around Neena, her face buried in her friend’s curls. Neena didn’t usually snore, but the difference in pollen between the city and Westchester had done a number on her sinuses and she was making the most adorable little snores in her sleep now. Jane couldn’t stop grinning every time Neena inhaled. It was more like a cat snoring than a human.

She still had trouble believing she hadn’t dreamed the conversation the previous evening with Nathan. The way he had touched her face, how hard her heart had hammered in her chest when he was so close. There was no question that she was attracted to him now. The rest of the relationship, though, was still a mystery.

“Why can’t he just be simple?” Jane muttered quietly into Neena’s hair and pushed her face deeper. “Why can’t everything be this simple?”

“You calling me simple?” Neena mumbled and rolled onto her back to grin at Jane. “Morning, gorgeous.”

Jane rolled with her and settled with her chin on Neena’s shoulder. “Morning. How did you sleep?”

Neena wriggled contentedly and hugged her close. “Pretty well. You?”

“Mmm.”

“That didn’t sound positive.”

“A lot on my mind.” Jane pushed her face down into Neena’s skin with a grunt of annoyance. “I swear to god, I don’t need this in my life right now.”

Neena stroked her hand over Jane’s tangled hair. “Don’t need what, sweetie?”

“Romance.”

They were both quiet for a moment with Neena’s fingers combing out Jane’s hair. “Nate’s interested, huh?” she finally murmured. Jane nodded silently. “Good thing or bad thing?”

“I don’t know,” Jane sighed. “I like being around him. He’s incredibly fuckable and that’s only gotten better the more I’m around him. I really like him, Neena. But I don’t want all the fluffy romance garbage. I don’t want to fall for him or have him fall for me, for us to do stupid shit because there’s all this extra emotion involved.”

“Not looking for love,” Neena said with a smile.

Jane snorted and propped her chin on Neena’s chest. “I didn’t say that. I’m just looking for,” she waved her finger back and forth between them, “this. I love you. You love me. And if you start singing the damn Barney song right now, I’m going to punch you so hard.”

“Not even the playground version?”

“Shush.” Jane grabbed the pillow and hit Neena with it, pulling a hysterical giggle out of her. They wrestled a little, tickling and hitting each other until they collapsed again in a heap. “I’m serious,” Jane said softly. “This is the only kind of love I think I can do. I feel like… like I’m broken or something and I hate it.”

Neena hugged her tightly and hushed her. “You’re not broken,” she whispered. “Not everyone’s built for romance. It doesn’t mean you’re broken. Some people don’t like sex. Some people don’t like men. Or women. Not that I understand that last one because, c’mon. Boobs.” Neena reached down and groped Jane’s for emphasis and Jane giggled. “Some people can only love one person at a time,” she added more quietly. “So you’re not broken, Jane. Anyone who cares about you will understand that and accept it.”

“Thanks,” Jane whispered back. She paused and then added quietly, “You’re saying I’m aro, aren’t you? Aromantic? Because I still don’t know for sure.”

“Then don’t label it,” Neena smiled and kissed her forehead. “Just know that I love you no matter how you label yourself.”

Jane shifted so she could pull Neena into a quiet kiss, both of them relaxing again. “Thank you,” she whispered. “It means a lot.”

“Anytime,” Neena grinned.


	6. Chapter 6

Cannonball dove for the head of the lead Sentinel, reversed his thrust just in time to catch the robot’s neck with arms and legs and blasted back up toward the sky. With a groan, the Sentinel’s head parted ways with its body and collapsed while Yukio tangled her lightening whip around its legs and Cable aimed a solid hit to its chest. “Good, next!” he shouted, pointing to the following Sentinel which Jane was scaling like a tree, her face intent and her gaze fixed on an open joint panel. “Keep it busy, keep it off of Latchkey!”

“On it!” Sam dove back down and flew a tight circle around the Sentinel’s head, forcing it to track him rather than the figure climbing its leg.

“Gimme a lift!” shouted Domino and Cable turned just in time to catch her leg and throw her up at the robot. She sprang off his hands with a wild scream and landed with a solid THUNK against its chest, digging her toes into cracks in the metal surface no one else could see. While the Sentinel tried to divide its attention between swiping her off its chest and frying Sam, Yukio’s whip darted out in a tangle and Jane finally pried open the cover over the machine’s joint.

From the ground, it was impossible for Nathan to track Jane’s progress and he did his best to put her out of his mind while he took aim for a third Sentinel that had just landed nearby. The gun rocked his shoulder and the incoming Sentinel’s right knee blew out in a spectacular spray of fire before dumping the entire machine down to the ground. “I love that fucking gun!” shouted Deadpool as he sailed overhead. From his body position, he had gotten a similar alley-oop from Colossus as Nathan had just given Domino. With katanas drawn, Wade landed on the back of the Sentinel’s head and slashed down into the wiring that barely showed between the armor plating of head and neck.

“Cable!” Negasonic’s voice caught his attention and Nathan whipped around. Ellie’s eyes were genuinely afraid for a moment and she pointed up at the Sentinel where the others had been focused. It had Sam in a vice grip in one hand and its lasers were sweeping the ground in front of it, apparently chasing Domino. “What do I do?”

“Left knee,” he ordered and dialed the gun’s settings before taking aim again. He fired just as Negasonic Teenage Warhead sprinted across the ground, her energy building to a head before she collided with the Sentinel’s left knee. Nathan’s blast took out the right and the whole thing came down with a screeching crash. “Domino!” he shouted.

“I’m good!” she shouted back. “Sam?”

“Good!” Cannonball squirmed free of the dead Sentinel’s grip and zipped up to survey the battle.

“Sound off,” Cable ordered quickly as he put one more solid blast into the nerve centers of the last Sentinel.

“Yukio, good.”

“Negasonic, good.”

“Deadpool, good.”

“Colossus, good.”

Cable turned back to look at the group as they started to assemble in an unscarred clearing. He frowned and tapped his receiver. “Latchkey?” Domino turned to look up at him, her eyes full of horror. “Jane? Sound off.” When no answer came, he sprinted for the far side of the Sentinel’s body, trying to remember where her joint panel had been. “Jane! Can you hear me?”

“Jane!?” Neena’s voice almost cracked in her panic as she followed him. “Jane, where are you? Baby, talk to me!”

Nathan glanced back at her and made a face, recognized the real panic. “Piotr, I need you.”

In a moment, Colossus had reached and caught Neena under the arms, hugged her close to his chest and whispered, “She will be alright. Shh, let him look. Nathan will find her.” Neena kicked for a few seconds, flailed and almost screamed her frustration before she gave up and collapsed into tears, clinging to Piotr’s smooth surface. After a moment, he sighed and held her with human arms, cradled the back of her head with his hand as she cried into his cotton sweater. “Shh,” he murmured, then started speaking gently in Russian until she went still.

“Dude,” Ellie said quietly, staring at him. “I forgot you have a face under that.” Piotr glared at her.

With Neena safely handled, Cable turned back to managing his own horror as he crawled over the surface of the destroyed Sentinel. “Jane,” he said, turning off his comm. “Jane, are you here? Answer me, please.” He spotted a flash of movement, a black-gloved hand that raised its fingers in acknowledgment. “God,” he breathed and rushed to grab the edge of the joint panel. The cover had clearly snapped shut on Jane when the Sentinel had started to fall, trapping her between the armored plating and the machine’s grinding joints. When he reached her hand, Nathan ran his fingers over her wrist. “Are you hurt?” he asked.

“Sixty-forty, electric slide,” she murmured back and he winced. Her voice sounded spacey and confused; she must have hit her head in the fall. With a few more solid pulls, Nathan pried the panel open, wrenched the cover off and threw it away. “Teddy bear,” she said and smiled at him, her hands up like a child who wanted to be picked up.

“God.” Nathan groaned and knelt on the edge of the opening. He couldn’t see her below the waist, but her upper half was spattered with blood and oil. “Computer, alert medic on duty. Team member injured, rapid response team to Danger Room.” The computer acknowledged and Nathan lowered himself to his belly beside the opening to the joint access. “We’ll get you out of there, Jane,” he whispered. “Don’t worry.”

Jane’s hand caught his and she pulled his fingers to her face, pressed her cheek into his palm. “Butterflies grant wishes,” she whispered. “Make a wish.” She kissed his hand and fluttered her eyelashes against his skin.

Nathan put his head down on the metal and let out a shuddering sigh. “Only if they’re not hurt,” he finally whispered and when he looked down at her, he realized he was crying. Angry, he wiped at his face and looked up. “I’m sorry, Jane. I’m so sorry.”

Jane tugged on his hand, an urgent little movement that drew his attention back down to her. “Make a wish,” she repeated firmly. “Wish for hope.” After a moment, she smiled at him again and said, “Wish for me. My wishes are all broken.”

She slumped, her face still.

“Fuck.” Nathan reached down to her again, cupped her face in his hands. “Jane? Jane!? Wake up. C’mon, stay with me. Jane!” He forced his human fingers against her neck, trying desperately to find her pulse. When he found it still stuttering under her skin, he let himself collapse again. “Fuck it. I wish we were home. I wish we hadn’t come. I wish… fuck, I wish I’d kissed you.”

“She’s not dead yet,” Hank’s voice murmured just over his shoulder and Nathan jerked to look up. With a careful movement, Beast lowered himself down beside Nathan. “You may still have a chance at that.” Nathan didn’t look at him, just followed his directions as they worked together to open the panel and excavate Jane from the inside of the Sentinel’s joint works. Once the cavity was open enough, Hank murmured, “Under her arms. Lift her as gently as you can. I want to make sure her spine isn’t damaged.”

Nathan obeyed, gathered Jane’s broken body into his arms and lifted her free of the machinery. Together, they carried her down to flat ground where Beast could more clearly evaluate her condition. “Concussion,” he finally said quietly. “Maybe four broken ribs. Her legs are severely lacerated but not broken, so there’s that blessing. She’s lost a lot of blood. Do you know her type?”

“AB+,” Nathan said promptly, earning him a surprised look from most of the gathered team. “What?” he asked, feeling his face flush. “I know all of your blood types. It’s relevant.”

“It is,” agreed Hank. “Especially in situations like this. Is any of your team a match? I don’t think I have AB+ in stock.”

“Universal recipient,” murmured Nathan and it was Hank’s turn to look surprised.

“It’s preferable to find a match, but yes. I could give her any of the blood in stock.” Hank tilted his head slowly, then looked down when Jane stirred with a soft sound of pain.

“I’m AB+.” Nathan shrugged slowly. “A lot of telekinetics are, from what I’ve heard. Nobody knows why.”

“I do,” muttered Wade and Colossus shushed him.

Hank nodded, then raised one eyebrow. “She needs your help, Nathan.”

“I know.” He took a long breath and nodded. “If you don’t think there’s risk, she has it.”

“Risk?” demanded Domino. She pulled herself free from Colossus’s arms and stormed close to Cable. “What kind of risk are we talking about here?”

Nathan pinched his lips together and leaned back from her. “Stand down, Neena,” he whispered. “Please. I just want her to be okay.”

Her eyes searched his face and she hissed, “You’re sick. You’re worried you’ll give her whatever you have if you give her your blood.” Nathan’s lips twitched and Neena gave him a sour smile. “Lucky guess.”

“There has been no indication that the infection is bloodborne,” Hank put in seriously. “You know I would never put her in danger, Nathan. She needs you and we are arguing here instead of helping her.”

“Several of our current students are AB+.” Everyone turned in surprise toward the door to the Danger Room as Professor Xavier came inside. A young girl with brilliantly red hair followed close behind his wheelchair, her head down and her cheeks flushed in embarrassment. “Nathan, I think you and Jean have met.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Jean, if you could assist Doctor McCoy and Cable in moving Jane to the infirmary, I would greatly appreciate it.” Xavier reached to pat the back of her hand when Jean started to say something, her eyes alarmed. “Don’t worry. Your abilities are strong enough for this now. Just take it slow.” He met her eyes, then smiled slightly. “Nathan doesn’t have the strength to spare right now. Please do as I ask, Jean.”

Reluctantly, Jean Grey came to stand next to Hank and Nathan. Between the three of them, they lifted Jane’s unconscious body as close to flat as they could without jarring her. Nathan could feel Jean’s telekinesis pressing up along Latchkey’s back to stabilize her spine. “Let us through, please,” Beast said in a clear, firm voice and the members of both X-Force and the X-Men cleared a path to allow them to carry their teammate away.

***

While Hank transfused Jean’s blood, Nathan sat in another room, a needle in his arm as his own blood flowed into a bag. Hank had insisted that he donate a pint or two, just in case of emergency and he had agreed only after the doctor had promised to thoroughly test his blood for signs of the techno-organic infection first. He probably would have still resisted if he hadn’t seen how pale Jane’s face was before the transfusion had started.

Neena was still almost vibrating with anger. He could feel her, even across the grounds. She and the rest of the team had returned to their rooms to give Hank some space to work. She blamed him for what had happened to Jane, hated him for even considering putting her at further risk with the uncertainty of his blood, never mind that he himself had been reluctant on that score. He couldn’t argue with her logic: he blamed himself for Jane’s injury, too. “I should have waited to take it down,” he hissed at himself. “I should have made sure she was out.”

“You responded to a threat,” a voice murmured and Cable looked up in surprise to see the dark skin and shockingly white hair of Ororo Monroe, Storm. She was leaning against the door frame of his room, her arms crossed over her chest and a gentle smile on her face. “It’s good to see you again, Nathan.”

“I didn’t know you were in,” Nathan replied. “I thought you were recruiting upstate.”

“I just returned home,” Storm said and stepped inside to sit in the chair facing him. “While I’m sorry to hear about your teammate’s injury, I am glad you’re here. There have been some troubling rumors I would like you to investigate.”

“When I don’t have a needle in my arm, giving blood so my teammate doesn’t pass out from blood loss?” Nathan tried to keep the bitter edge out of his voice but heard it there anyway.

“Of course.” Storm watched him for a moment, then sighed. “I know we have never been friends, Nathan, but I wish we could at least be cordial.”

“Putting one of my friends through a meat grinder has me a little testy.”

“It is the risk of leadership.” She sat back with a frustrated glare. “You know that as well as I do. You responded to the immediate concern of visible teammates in peril while another one struggles with panic. Someone else was injured in the process. No one was killed, only one injured. You should count your blessings before your sins, my friend.”

Cable gritted his teeth and felt a surge of frustrated anger, impotent and mostly self-directed. His hand fisted tightly and he suppressed a growl. He was so tired of fighting things he couldn’t see.

“Nathan.”

He looked up at Hank’s voice and felt his anger leaking away at the concern on the doctor’s face. “Is she okay? What happened?”

Without speaking, Hank reached up and tapped his own neck with two fingers, then raised his eyebrows and nodded to the mirror mounted on one wall.

With a sinking feeling in his chest, Nathan stood up to look. The corded muscles of the left side of his neck were more metallic than flesh now and he closed his eyes in frustration. Too much going on. He had gotten distracted, let his control slip and now he was that much more machine than man. He dropped back into his seat and covered his face with both hands. “I can’t keep doing this,” he whispered. “I just can’t.”

“Forge will be home tonight,” Storm said quietly and touched the back of his wrist. “Charles has also expressed a desire to help, as has Jean Grey.”

“No.” Nathan shook his head, then took a long breath. “Not Jean. Leave the kids out of it. The professor can help if he wants, but I really don’t want Jean exposed to this.” _To me_ , he thought and pushed the thought away.

“As you wish,” Hank said, “but she’s an excellent telekinetic and getting stronger all the time. She could be a great help in pushing your infection back rather than simply maintaining it.”

“I know how strong she is,” Nathan snapped. “I know how strong she will be. I’ve seen her. I don’t want her treating me now. If I can avoid her treating me ever, I would be happy with that.”

“As you wish,” Hank repeated while Ororo shook her head sadly.

***

When Jane woke up, there was a girl she didn’t know sitting beside her bed, arm linked to her own by a dark red tube. Wade sat on the other side, his feet propped on the edge of her bed and a magazine held up to his face. She tilted her head, then started to snicker. “You never stay serious for long, do you?”

Deadpool put down the copy of “Locksmiths Weekly” and shrugged. “Thought you might need a laugh when you woke up, that’s all. How are you feeling?”

“Sore.” Jane glanced at the girl on her other side. “Oddly tied down.”

“You lost a lot of blood,” the girl explained in a breathless rush. “I’m AB+. Professor Xavier said I should help if I could, so--”

“No, it’s okay.” Jane reached to pat her hand. “I appreciate it. Just wasn’t expecting it.” A wave of dizziness broke over her and she slumped back against her pillow. “Wow. That was… exciting.” She turned her head to look at Deadpool. “What happened?”

“Ellie and Nathan took it down. It had Sam and was close to getting Neena.”

Jane felt a low ache in her chest and nodded, looking away. “He forgot about me.”

Deadpool’s foot rocked the bed a little and Jane winced as the motion jarred her. “Don’t go all self-pitying on me, Jane. There was a lot going on at the time. You would have forgotten you, too.” She didn’t look at him or answer and Wade sighed, leaning forward to prop his chin on his hands, elbows on the railing of the bed. “Look at me, Medeco. You’ve been around Nate long enough now to know how he copes. Which is to say, he doesn’t. He’s tearing himself apart about this and Neena isn’t helping.”

Jane blinked. “What’s Neena got to do with this?”

Wade raised an eyebrow, the ripple of movement visible through the fabric of his mask. “You’re kidding me, right? Neena’s furious that he got you hurt. She’s blaming him just as hard as he is.” At Jane’s confused look, Wade sighed and let his head hang for a second. “You’re surprised your girlfriend is having a fit because you got hurt and she wasn’t right there to save you?”

“Neena’s not…” Jane trailed off, studying the way Wade’s eyebrows were raised under the mask. When he started to nod, she subsided. “Oh.”

“I would have thought you knew,” Wade commented drily, “what with all the sex you’ve been having.”

“We’re friends,” Jane whispered. “It’s not like that.”

“Not for you.” Jane looked up, fighting a little bubble of panic in her chest. Wade sighed and pulled his mask up to his forehead. “Did it never occur to you that it was more for her?”

“I… I know she loves me. I thought she loves me the way I love her. Like she loves all her friends. I didn’t think it was different.” Her mind flashed back to the conversation she had had with Domino that morning, tangled up in each other’s arms and calmly talking about whether or not Cable had any interest in her. Jane closed her eyes with a soft groan. “I’m so fucking broken.”

“Clueless and broken are not the same thing.” Wade reached and patted her arm. “Don’t worry about it too much. She loves you even if you don’t know she loves you and that’s saying a lot.”

“I never wanted that.”

“I think she knows.” Jane looked up again and Wade smiled. “I don’t think she wanted to push you into something you didn’t want, so she gave you want you wanted. Friends who fuck.”

“But that’s not fair to her,” Jane protested softly.

“No,” Wade murmured, “it’s not. But she still got what she wanted. She got to be with you.” He paused and tilted his head to look around her to where Jean was intensely studying to be a potted plant. “This doesn’t leave this room, Redd. Understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Jean whispered. “I won’t say anything.”

“Good. Be the tree.” Wade nodded decisively.

Jane glanced at the teenager and grinned at her baffled expression. “Don’t worry,” she said. “None of us understand him, either.”


	7. Chapter 7

The air buzzed with a faint pink-purple glow, static of the mind, a vibration of the skin. Combined time field and electromagnetic stasis, the machine Forge had created locked down the spreading techno-organic infection. It also locked down the positive circuits Nathan had shaped which granted him high-definition and full-spectrum vision in his otherwise blind eye, the superhuman strength of his left arm and leg. As much as he hated the weakness and blindness, Nathan knew a moment of absolute relaxation for the first time in a month. He could let go of the telekinetic field he had structured so carefully over the years. It reminded him of bench pressing with Wade, of having the other man catch an overloaded weight and lift it off of him.

Cable swallowed tears.

He knew how much strain the constant expenditure of energy put on his body and mind. It was very different to know that abstractly and to feel the strain lifted. Almost forty years he had been fighting this infection, since he was a child. He knew the burden, the risks, the cost.

A hand pressed his shoulder reassuringly. “Don’t forget to breathe, man.” Forge stepped around the table and adjusted a few levels on a panel. “Doing okay? Too much?”

“No, it’s fine.” Nathan took a few long, slow breaths as he adjusted to the feeling of not having to constantly push his limits. “Can you tell how far it’s changed?”

“There’s maybe a half a percent increase,” Forge said. “Most of it’s along your spine and shoulder.”

“Most of it?”

The inventor sighed and tapped his finger lightly in the middle of Cable’s chest. “About an eighth of an inch of growth here. I’m more worried about the development along your spine.”

“Yeah, so was Hank.” They were both quiet for a moment and Cable broke the silence to whisper, “It’s digging deeper, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Forge pulled a chair over and sat beside the table, his chin in his hand. “Nate, I’m not going to lie to you. It’s not good. Based on some of the testing I’ve done with infected cells, it will eventually try to completely take over your consciousness. The rats all either went crazy and self-destructive or started attacking each other mindlessly. It always ended with someone dead in that cage.”

Nathan closed his eyes and nodded. “I suspected as much. I’ve felt some flashes of temper that I don’t think are mine sometimes. Only when I’m really tired, though. How long do you think I have?”

Forge shrugged. “Based on the progression I’ve seen in four months, probably another year or so before it takes over. Maybe a week if your TK stops holding it back.”

“Maybe it’s good I’m here,” he murmured, more to himself than to Forge. “At least Hope and Tyler are safe.”

“Nice to know your priorities,” Forge grunted as he stood up. “Do you want to just rest for a while? Or do you want to start trying to fight right away? The professor asked for an update.”

“Just give me a few minutes.”

“Sure. I’ll be over there when you’re ready. Just yell.”

In the silence disturbed only by the buzz of the field, Nathan closed his eyes and let his mind stretch. He scanned over the compound, saw students playing in the courtyard. He saw Ororo and Hank talking with a few of the younger students. He saw Colossus playing basketball with Yukio and Ellie, a sight he indulged in for a while. And he felt Wade talking like a constant background chatter, but when he examined it, it was just Wade’s mind that was constantly chattering. The man himself was sitting silently in the infirmary alongside Jane’s bed.

Jane.

Nathan stretched himself a little farther and brought her into focus. She was awake, but her mind was hazy with pain medication and her own confused thoughts. He could sense her discomfort, her emotional upheaval but was surprised by the solidity of her defensive wall. He knew she was upset but couldn’t sense why. There was a plate of food on a tray beside her bed, untouched and gone cold. Nathan smiled to himself, then nudged her peas into a smile before withdrawing his mind back to himself. “I think I’m ready,” he called to Forge and braced himself for a fight.

***

Forge held the rat carefully in his hand, watching the little creature breathing, its heart racing against his palm. “I’m sorry, friend,” he murmured as he inserted the needle to implant the infected tissue. The rat squeaked and thrashed a little, immediately showing growth of techno-organic circuitry across the surface of its skin, shedding the hair and buckling the muscles. Quickly, he put the rodent back into its field cage to halt the growth. When he was sure the circuits had ceased growing, he reached back in to stroke the rat’s back. “Just one more,” he said and tucked another needle under the skin.

He waited, watching the rat as it chewed at its new circuits irritably, then wandered around the cage, took a drink of water from the bottle, crawled up under its bedding. It took almost an hour of taking nonproductive notes on the rat’s behavior before Forge noticed a change. The rat lifted its head from the bedding and squeaked again, then began to scratch at its skin frantically. The circuitry flaked away, along with skin and hair until new skin showed underneath, raw and pink. Before the rat could remove all of the infection, Forge slowly backed off the stasis field until the circuitry started to regrow. He looked at the setting and stared for a moment, then grinned.

The field was entirely off.

The techno-organic infection barely advanced, warring with the rat’s rapidly regenerating tissue. It would still overtake the rat eventually, but it would take a much, much longer time to do so.

If the tests held true, he might have just bought Nathan Summers a full lifespan.

Forge finished taking his notes and moved on to the next rat in the series.

***

Jane woke up from her medication-induced unconsciousness to the sound of a familiar voice humming softly, a familiar hand stroking her hair back from her forehead. “Neena,” she whispered and heard the other woman’s humming shift to a warmer sound, smiling.

“Good morning, gorgeous,” Neena whispered back and gently kissed her forehead. “How are you feeling?”

“Like shit on a stick,” Jane sighed and opened her eyes. Neena’s face was close to hers, so she reached up with one hand to stroke her cheek. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Neena raised her eyebrows. “Tell you what?” she said softly, turning her head to kiss Jane’s fingers.

“That you felt differently.” Jane stroked her fingertips down Neena’s jaw. Neena sighed and started to pull away, but Jane sat up to follow her. “No, come back. Talk to me. What happened? When did it change?”

“It didn’t change,” Neena said quietly. “Nothing’s changed.” She paused, then scooted closer again to hold Jane’s hand. “I love you. Always have. I know it’s a different love than what you feel and I’m happy with the love you do feel. Too happy to wish it was different.”

Jane closed her eyes again with a frustrated huff. “It’s not fair to you, though. Just sitting there and talking to me about Nathan like it doesn’t bother you.”

“You’re my friend first.” Neena kissed her fingers and smiled. “I do mean that. I’m just one of those lucky people to be in love with my best friend. If my friend wants to explore something with someone else, I’ve got no problem with that. I don’t own you. You don’t own me.” When Jane shifted uncomfortably, Neena added in a soft voice, “What I want is to tease Sam into fits of embarrassment with you. I want to flirt with you in public. I want to kiss you when we’re alone and hold you when you’re lonely. I want to be able to sneak into your bedroom and snuggle up to you without you being embarrassed by my being there.” She shrugged with another smile. “I love you. I love being with you. I love being your friend. I love being your lover. You’re fond of the phrase that some friendships are founded on sex and I agree with you. Ours is, but that’s not all it is. It’s founded on shared interests and senses of humor and mutual respect. For me, that’s love. If you choose to call it something else, that’s fine with me. It doesn’t change that I love you.”

“So…”

“Labels don’t matter. What matters to me is that you’re happy. If that means you start a more serious relationship with someone else, it won’t change that I love you and you’re my friend and I’ll be there for you. If that means you go on a wild orgy-esque weekend, it doesn’t change anything.” Neena leaned in and kissed her, holding her face gently in one hand and taking her time. “I love you,” she whispered. “I’ll always be here for you. No matter what.”

Jane wrapped her arms around Neena’s neck and pulled her close for another kiss. “I don’t fucking deserve you,” she whispered and Neena laughed.

“You’re right. I guess you’re just lucky.”

***

Nathan spent six hours in the stasis field, his mind focused down to a fine point, laser sharp and just as cutting. With Forge monitoring the field levels and Professor Xavier supporting his telekinesis from within, Nathan sliced at the infected tissue that continued to invade his body. He pushed techno-organic circuits back until his own flesh showed raw underneath, sometimes bleeding until Beast treated the fresh wounds.

His back was the worst.

The infection had wormed its way almost into his spinal column and it took an enormous amount of effort to control what he removed and what he left in place. More than once, Hank had stopped him with a rushed order and Nathan had lain there, panting hard as the doctor dressed the gaping slash down his spine. “I don’t think you should keep going,” Hank said after the fifth such interruption. “Nathan, I can see bone.”

 _He’s right, Nathan_ , Professor Xavier whispered in his mind. _You should rest. You can’t keep going like this without damaging yourself. If you overstrain your mind, you won’t be able to maintain this progress without the field._

“I’m not done.” Cable steeled himself against the concern of his care team. He knew they wanted what was best for him, but he also knew they would stop him before his limits. He knew his own limits. “I’m going again.”

“Nathan,” Forge sighed in frustration but Nathan wasn’t listening.

When his concentration slipped and Xavier had to catch the edges of the wound to keep him from ripping out more than he could handle, Nathan grunted and gasped a little, struggling. _It’s not about overloading,_ Jane’s voice whispered in his head. _It’s about pushing the upper limit_. “I’m done,” he finally gasped. “No more.”

“I’m starting to think I’ll need to put your own blood back into you,” Hank muttered as he cleaned and dressed the new wound. “You’ve bled a lot this time.”

“I’m sorry?” Nathan offered with a sheepish grin to which Hank only grunted his annoyance. When Beast had finished, he started to push himself up off the bed, only to find his doctor pushing him right back down again.

“Stay,” Hank said. “I want you resting completely tonight. Forge can get bedding for you, but you’re on full bed rest until tomorrow at breakfast. I don’t want you so much as walking to the bathroom without help.”

Nathan rolled his eyes and turned his head to glare. “C’mon, Hank, I’m not that weak.”

“I’ll make you wear the bedpan as a hat if you argue,” Hank growled. “Don’t push me on this, Nathan. Rest. Sleep. And don’t pick the scabs.”

“Yes, sir, doctor, sir,” Nathan grumbled and slumped back against the table on his face. He lifted his head when Forge pushed a pillow at him and rolled on his side to curl under the blanket the inventor offered him. “Goodie, a night on paper sheets.”

“At least you know they’re clean,” Forge said and patted his shoulder. “Get some rest, man. You’ve had a hell of a day.”

“No kidding,” Nathan muttered under his breath and closed his eyes against the stasis field’s pink-purple glow. With his eyes shut, he could only hear the field, sense it maintaining his humanity. He pushed the sound away from his mind and tried to just focus on relaxing, sleeping. He was on the bare edge of unconsciousness when something skittered across his awareness. Nathan blinked and half-opened his eyes, then followed the sensation with his mind, trying to track it. After a moment, he said, “Is someone there?”

The pink-purple glow of the field painted Domino’s face an ominous black-purple, the lighter birthmark around her eye glowing a brighter pink. She came into the room and leaned against the wall near his head. “You look like a preemie in an incubator.”

“Gee, thanks.” Nathan made a face, then let it go. He hadn’t felt tired a minute ago, but he felt exhausted now. “How’s Jane?” he asked softly.

“She’s going to be fine,” Neena murmured. “Her ribs are still tender, but Doctor McCoy said her concussion looks like it’s cleared up and the cuts on her legs are treated and stitched.” She paused and studied her fingernails for a moment before adding, “Almost four hundred stitches, Nathan. The doctor doesn’t think it’ll scar. Much. For four hundred stitches.”

Nathan winced and closed his eyes. “Shit.”

“Yes.” Neena’s voice was hard-edged and cold.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I really am. I reacted. I moved too fast and she got caught in it. I’m so sorry, Neena.”

“You should be.” She paused for a second, then stepped closer to lean into the field and snarled at him, “She can’t run, Cable. She won’t be able to run for at least three weeks while she’s healing. And that’s on you.” She poked him in the forehead with a fingertip. “I hope whatever you have kills you before I do.”

Nathan kept his eyes shut as he listened to her footsteps receding. When she was gone, he reached out with his mind, almost desperate for some kind of contact. Skimming across the surface of the sleeping minds in the school, he finally found one awake and alert, a mind that reached back when his distress became plain.

Jane embraced his mind, her thoughts nothing but comfort and forgiveness and reassurance. She didn’t blame him. She understood the pressure he was under, understood that there had to be a decision made swiftly. She quieted his doubts and his protests, wiped away the harsh angles of what Neena had said. _Sleep_ , her mind whispered. _It’s okay. Come and see me tomorrow. I miss you._

_I will. I miss you, too._

With her mental hand on his back, Nathan fell asleep.

***

Morning came and Jane opened her eyes slowly. She wondered if she had only dreamed the contact of Nathan’s mind the previous night. It hadn’t seemed like him, desperate and afraid and as raw as an open wound. Her doubts faded when she realized she could still feel him as if he was in the same room, as if her hand was still on his back.

Movement in the room drew her attention and Jane turned her head. Hank was moving some things around on a tray but paused to smile at her when he saw her head move. “Good morning, Jane. I hope your sleep was restful.”

“It was.” She shifted and winced against the pain in her ribs. “Looking forward to moving around, though. I hate being stuck in a bed.”

“Sounds like another of my patients,” he muttered under his breath.

“I suppose I can’t ask you what happened to him,” Jane said softly and Hank looked up in surprise. “Nathan,” she clarified. “I’m assuming that’s who you’re talking about.” Beast turned back to his tray without answering and Jane twisted her lips in a frustrated smile. “He was scared last night,” she whispered. “I’ve never seen him scared.”

“Could you tell why?” Hank asked, his tone concerned.

“Guilt mostly, I think.” Jane shifted in her sheets again and grunted at the pain. “God, I’m not sure what’s worse: broken ribs or an asleep ass. Please tell me I can get up soon, Hank.”

Hank sighed and turned to face her, his hands on his hips. “Well, I suppose if you need to use the facilities, I can see trying to stand on your own. Be easy with yourself, Jane. You have four broken ribs and lost a lot of blood yesterday. We put what we could back but it’s still a big loss.”

“Yes, sir,” Jane murmured and pushed the blanket off of her legs before swinging toward the edge of the bed. Almost before he could move, she was standing and walking to the bathroom, only to discover that her legs were weaker than her brain thought they were and she started to collapse.

Beast reached to catch her, but arms had already found her. Nathan smirked quietly at Jane as he steadied her and held her up. “I know you missed me, but this is a little extreme.”

Jane blinked up at him, then grinned and hugged him. “I did miss you. All twelve hours of it.” When her arms squeezed, she felt him grunt and her own ribs twinged to remind her. “Ow.”

“Don’t know your own strength,” he said drily.

But Jane saw the raw edges along his bionics, the bandages wrapped over and around his shoulder. “What happened,” she demanded in a whisper, her hands reaching before she had a chance to think better of it.

Nathan sighed and caught her hand, returned it to her with gentle firmness. “I’m fine. Just some irritation, that’s all. It happens all the time.”

Jane’s eyes went hard and Nathan bit his lip at her expression. “Friends don’t lie to each other,” she whispered and he flinched. “I want to know what’s going on. Neena’s been muttering about you being sick, too.” When he didn’t answer or respond immediately, she poked him in the human shoulder. “I think you owe me that much.”

“Fine,” Nathan sighed. “I’ll tell you.”

“After I pee.”

“After you pee.”

Hank broke in to add, “and after you’ve both eaten. I’ll have some breakfast sent up.”

Nathan smiled. “Thanks.”


	8. Chapter 8

Over breakfast of toast and eggs and barely burned bacon, Jane listened while Cable explained his history. He explained the techno-organic virus infecting his body, how it had attached itself to him as a child and how it consumed all his telekinetic abilities to hold it in check. He explained how Forge and Beast had been studying the effects of the infection and researching ways to limit its movement, maybe even cure it. After a brief pause to swirl his cooling coffee, he had even explained what would probably happen if it took him over entirely. 

Jane considered all of this for a while, chewing her toast. “Can I see?” she finally asked in a small voice.

Nathan pressed his lips together in a frustrated grimace. “It’s not fun, Jane. It’s ugly as fuck and even more so right now because we’ve been picking at it.” He gestured to his face where the bionics met flesh along his neck in a weeping, bandaged line. “It’s just more of this.”

She reached and pulled his human hand into her lap, lacing her fingers through his thoughtfully. “I want to see,” she said softly. 

“You’ve seen me without my shirt before,” he protested. “You know what it looks like.”

Jane nodded without looking up at him, then folded her fingers into his. “But I didn’t know what it was then. Please, Nathan. I want to see.”

Nathan sat without speaking, just holding her fingers. After a moment, he slipped his hand out of hers and reached up to pull his t-shirt over his head. He didn’t look at her when Jane lifted her eyes to him, his face flushed with shame. Bandages crisscrossed his chest, wrapped to cover the gaping line of raw flesh down his chest and stomach. The line vanished under his waistband and Jane made a soft sound of sympathy: she was at least conscious that his left leg was as infected as his arm. 

“You said it’s down your spine, too?” she asked him and he nodded without meeting her gaze. Without her asking, he turned so she could see the deep gouge he had carved with his mind last night, excavating in an attempt to save his humanity. Jane felt her breath catch in her throat and before she had a chance to fully consider her actions, she put her hands on his back on either side of his spine. “God, Nathan.” His skin shivered under her touch. “How old were you?”

“Four,” he said softly. “Redd and Slym considered it a blessing it bothered to match my growth. It could have just consumed me when I was little, but instead… instead, it grew with me.” Nathan turned his head to smile thinly at her over his shoulder. “Followed me right through puberty.”

Jane looked up at him, then closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against his back. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. 

“For what?” he murmured. “It’s not your fault unless you’re some criminal genius technobiologist.” 

“It just… it must hurt.”

“It does.”

Jane gently lifted her hand and placed it on his spine, aware of a low vibration in her palm that had nothing to do with Nathan’s breathing or heartbeat. It clashed with those functions, grated in a horrible dissonance. After a moment, she found herself pushing against it with her telekinesis. In a burst, something opened in her mind and Jane gasped, suddenly able to see the mechanical workings of the techno-organic virus. It made sense, ordered and methodical and not that unlike clockwork or the inner workings of a high-security lock. 

A lock.

“I can help,” she breathed and followed what her instincts told her.

“Jane, what…” Nathan trailed off with a gasp when he realized that the infection was receding tangibly from along his spine, near where her hand rested on his skin. He grunted in pain when her hand dipped against his raw flesh, a new patch opening there as she worked. “Jane, stop!”

Her hand jerked away from his skin and she looked up at him in horror. “God, I’m sorry. I didn’t…”

Nathan shook his head and paused, reached over his shoulder to where she had opened his skin. There was blood on his fingers, but a clear spot where there had been infected circuitry. “What did you do?” he asked.

“I…” Jane shrugged helplessly. “I unlocked it. Unraveled it. Like I do when I’m picking locks or shaping clockwork.” She looked up at him, chewing her lip. “Did I hurt you?” she asked.

“Yes,” Nathan murmured. He slowly rolled his fingertips together, then looked at her with a slow smile. “Do it again.”

 

***

 

Colossus looked up to find Wade humming to himself happily. “What has you in such a good mood?” he asked. He was in a pretty good mood himself, but anything that had Wade that happy tended to make him suspicious. 

“Other than finally gettin’ some?” Wade shrugged and flopped across the foot of the bed on his back, his head hanging back off the edge. “Things are just… good right now.” He paused to consider in silence. “Though, I suppose if things are this good, something nasty’s right around the corner to restore dramatic tension.” A knock on the door made him sigh in frustration. “I fucking hate being right.”

Piotr chuckled and stood up, paused to kiss Wade on the forehead and went to answer the door. “Ororo,” he said in surprise. “Good morning.”

Storm tilted her head to look around him to where Wade was still flopped on the bed, then gave Piotr a skeptical look, one eyebrow arched. Piotr shrugged and grinned, an expression somewhere between embarrassment and glee. She rolled her eyes and shook her head a little before saying, “Good morning, Piotr. Could we speak in private?”

“You know I’m only going to eavesdrop,” Wade called and Colossus pointed over his shoulder in silent agreement. 

Storm sighed and nodded. “Well enough. I attempted to speak with Cable about this yesterday but my timing was poor. There are some disturbing rumors coming out of the city. I would have liked X-Force to look into them, but they appear to be a few men down.”

“Jane’s bouncing back,” Wade said as he got up from the bed to stand behind Piotr, his arms looped loosely around the Russian’s waist. “And Nathan should be good to fight. What’s up?”

“You’ve heard of the Morlocks?” Storm asked him in a low tone.

Piotr’s eyebrows arched in concern. “The underground mutants.”

“Not the far-advanced human society that H.G. Wells wrote about?” added Wade and Piotr waved a shushing hand at him. 

“They have been sighted in Brooklyn and Manhattan,” Storm continued quietly. “They are moving more openly and this concerns me. Will you take a team to investigate?”

“Of course,” Colossus said. 

“We’ll come, too,” Wade added. “Other than the obvious story requirement, it is kind of our stomping ground.” He paused and then poked Piotr in the ribs, making the big mutant squirm ticklishly. “I can show you MY room!”

Storm rolled her eyes with a sigh and walked away.

 

***

 

When Henry McCoy came back to check on Jane and Nathan, he opened the door, took one look at the situation and muttered, “Oh my stars and garters,” before closing it again. He knocked this time and called in, “Jane?”

Jane looked up from where she was straddling Nathan’s back, her hands pressed against his skin. She gasped a little and reeled, dizzy. “Yeah?”

“Can… are you decent?”

Nathan started to laugh and whispered to Jane, “Get my shirt?”

“But the blood…”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve got another.” When she leaned and almost fell off the bed reaching for his shirt, Nathan caught her with one arm and rolled to let her droop against the mattress instead. “Are you okay?”

“Dizzy,” she admitted in a small voice. “I don’t think I’ve ever used my power that long before.”

Nathan smiled and ran his thumb along her cheek. “I appreciate it. What you do is a lot less invasive than what I do.” He glanced at the door and picked up his shirt from the floor. “It’s fine, Hank,” he called as he pulled the shirt over his head. The fabric immediately clung to the bloody skin of his back and he tried to keep a straight face when Beast came in to study them warily. 

“I take it you’re feeling better?” Hank asked Jane, who grinned from her flopped position on the bed.

“Actually, I’m dizzy as fuck,” she told him. “Is it normal to be dizzy after using your power?”

Hank opened his mouth, then stopped to look at Nathan again. With a small smile, Nathan turned so Hank could see the line of sluggishly weeping blood down his back, then shrugged. “Nathan,” Hank sighed in frustration. “Both she and you are supposed to be resting.” He looked at Jane and curled a finger. “Can you sit up?” Jane obeyed and Hank muttered his way through a routine checking of her reflexes. “You seem fine. But for all that is beautiful and lovely, don’t do this to me, either of you.” He grumbled and walked around Nathan to check his back. “I’m surrounded by overachievers.” 

“I would say I’m sorry, but I’m not,” said Nathan with a shrug that pulled on his fresh skin.

“Hold still, damn you.” 

“Sorry.”

Hank paused as he checked the raw skin of Nathan’s back. “This is… wait.” He looked over at Jane in surprise. “You did this?” When she nodded, he looked back at the retreating circuitry. “I’ve never seen it act like this. It’s still receding, Nathan. Are you still fueling it? Is she?”

“No,” Nathan said. “I’m maintaining my barrier and I can feel it going, but neither of us is pushing it.”

“What did you do?” Hank asked Jane softly.

“I unlocked it.” She shrugged. 

“That’s all I can get out of her, either,” Nathan said. “She’s showed me what she does and I can’t duplicate it. No idea how it works, just that it does.”

Hank whistled slowly and shook his head. “As wonderful as that is, Nathan, it’s leaving you essentially without skin. If it keeps up this pace, you’ll go into shock. And it will leave scars worse than Wade’s.”

“Do I look like I care about scars?” Nathan asked him ironically. 

“How about systemic shock?” Hank shot back in irritation. “Jane, can you stop it?”

Jane blinked and met Nathan’s gaze. “I think so?”

Nathan sighed and nodded. “He’s probably right.”

Jane sat up and scooted to the edge of the bed while Nathan presented her with his back again. As she touched him and concentrated on the technological infection, Hank unwrapped the bandages on her legs to examine the stitches. “There,” she whispered. “I reset the programming. It’ll still advance if you don’t hold it, though. It’s… it’s really simplistic. It only goes forward or backward. There’s no neutral setting.”

“It’s okay,” murmured Nathan. He turned around to face her, reached and stroked her cheek slowly. She leaned into his hand and they smiled at each other. It occurred to Nathan that the time they had spent this morning was just as intimate as any sexual act. Watching her face, he found himself leaning in and stopped, tucked his chin. “I appreciate your help.”

“Any time,” Jane whispered back. They both hovered for a second, thinking. Carefully, Jane sat back again and looked down at Hank, who was still checking her bandages. “Will I ever play the violin again, Doc?”

“Probably not with your toes,” Hank replied, “though if you devoted yourself, you could.” He stood and brushed his hands together. “Everything seems to be healing well, though. I’m confident that you’ve recovered from the concussion, though that dizziness does worry me.” He took his penlight to shine it in her eyes again. “Any pain?”

“No,” Jane said. “I really think it was just overexertion. I’ve never used my power that long before.”

Hank leaned back with a blink. “Really.” He glanced at Nathan and raised an eyebrow. “You’re an Omega level, aren’t you?” he asked her. When she nodded, he pursed his lips. “That doesn’t seem like an Omega level talent.” 

Jane snorted. “I just understand how to move small things, that’s all. I can barely juggle sugar cubes, Hank. I’m not very strong.”

Beast considered, then nodded and held up the light pen again. “Humor me.” 

Jane tilted her head warily, then focused on the pen, its shape, and its weight, then pulled on it. Slowly, the pen lifted over his hand and turned on its axis, then moved horizontally to spin like a compass needle. Her expression was exasperated when she sighed, “Nathan, let go.”

Nathan raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I’m not doing anything.”

Slowly, Hank started to grin as the pen continued to turn and tumble over his hand, Jane’s eyes getting wider and more confused. “You’ve got to be holding it. It’s too light.” After a moment, she lowered the pen to the tray table beside the bed, stood it on end and wrote, “What the hell!?” in fluid cursive across the napkin. 

“I think I’m more impressed you still know how to write in cursive script,” Hank grinned.

“That’s not me,” Jane said quietly, shaking her head. “I’m not that strong.”

Hank reached to take her hands and looked her in the eye, still smiling. “I think you are now.”

“How is that possible?” she whispered.

“The blood transfusion.” Nathan’s face was a mask of shock for a moment before he started to grin, too. “Jean’s blood. She’s an Alpha-level power or at least she’ll be one eventually.” He looked at Hank, who nodded. “You think it’s that simple?”

“Given that she shares both Jean’s blood type and her ability, I think it might be. I don’t know that it’s permanent, though. We’ve never seen anything like it before outside of Rogue’s ability to borrow powers.”

Jane sat quietly on her bed, hands in her lap while she stared at them. “So it might not stay,” she half-whispered and Nathan and Hank stopped talking to look at her. After a second, she peeked up at Nathan with a sad smile. “I might not be able to help you for long. If this wears off and it’s because of the boost that I could do… what I did…”

Cable sighed and reached to touch her face gently. “If it wears off, you’re still the only one who knows how to do what you did. If you can’t do it on your own, Professor Xavier can probably boost your power long enough to do it for short periods.” Jane closed her eyes to lean into his hand and he smiled. “You’re still the only person who’s been able to make a major breakthrough in this since I got here. Thank you for that.”

“We should see if you can explain it to the professor and Forge,” Hank said, a soft note of urgency in his voice. “If you lose the ability, we at least need the technique before it’s gone.”

“I’ll be glad to,” Jane said. “Anything to help.”

 

***

 

Domino leaned on the doorframe to Jane’s room. The door stood open, but Jane herself was curled into a ball on the bed, sound asleep. Neena knew she was tired. It was why she was still standing just outside the room instead of having already crawled into the bed beside her. She missed having her friend snuggled up close to her. 

Because Jane was her friend, first and foremost. Yes, she loved her. Yes, they were great in bed together. Yes, she missed her when she wasn’t there. But if Jane saw her as only a friend, Neena was okay with that. She knew where she stood with Jane and it was better than not being close to her at all. She could have kicked Wade for telling Jane about her feelings, but it occurred to her now that being honest about it was probably better anyway.

As if thinking about him conjured him, Wade put his chin on Neena’s shoulder and murmured, “You okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” she replied softly. “My best friend is happy.”

“Any risk of you actually killing Nathan if the chance arises?”

Neena shrugged a little, not enough to displace him. “Not really. I was angry when I said that. He really did look like a preemie in an incubator, though.”

“At least he wasn’t going full-on Winnie-the-Pooh.”

Neena shuddered. “Did you have to remind me of that?”

“It’s my job to make as many references back to the movie as possible. Especially since Linn’s hoping to see it again this weekend. She has to feed the habit, y’know.”

“Sometimes, I wish I did,” Neena chuckled and leaned her cheek against Wade’s. “It’s not creepy or stalker-ish that I’m standing here watching her sleep, right?”

“Consider who you’re asking,” Wade grinned. He paused, then said, “Can I hug you?”

Neena tilted her head in surprise. “Sure.” Deadpool looped his arms around her waist and she leaned back against him, her eyes dropping closed. “You’ve never asked before. Are _you_ okay?”

Wade hummed in her ear and she felt him shrug. “Yeah, I guess so. A little grumpy because the story did a sharp right turn into Aromanticsville. I was looking forward to fluffy, snuggly, new-love Nathan wandering around the compound.”

“That’s really hard to picture.”

“Well, _now_ it is.” Wade huffed and let his chin rest on top of her head. “Now, it’s nothing more than a scrap in a folder somewhere. Stupid canon relationship.” They stood in silence for a while, then he murmured, “Are you sure you’re okay? It’d be a really interesting love triangle.”

“Deadpool, king of drama,” chuckled Domino. “Yeah, I’m really okay. I love Jane and if she’s happiest as friends with benefits, then that’s what we are. I don’t really need that much and what I do need, she gives me.” She swung herself a little so he would sway with her. “I don’t need flowers and romance as long as we still get to goof off together and she still trusts me enough to talk to me about what’s going on with her.” She grinned and looked at Wade upside-down. “Guess I’m lucky like that.”

“Guess so,” he mused.


	9. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wade's got something to say.

A note from your friendly neighborhood Deadpool

 

Previously, I have presented to you the fanfiction writer and her nigh obsession with canon. Well, the truth of the matter is that she went to see Deadpool 2 this morning with an eye toward keeping herself in line with canon (along with ogling Josh Brolin). She’s realized now exactly how far from canon she actually is with Muscle Memory and it’s causing some rather spectacular analysis paralysis. You should see it. She’s all locked up, just staring at the last lines she wrote and trying to find some way to fix it.

Now, me, personally. I’m having fun. I say roll with it and see what kind of clusterfuck this chapter-by-chapter plotting really ends up being. She’s thinking about how to rewrite it to fix what she messed up. 

If there’s one thing I know, it’s the inside of this girl’s head. She’s gonna quit if she tries to rewrite. If she keeps over analyzing this, she’s gonna fold up and stop entirely. And that would be a fucking shame because she’s got an idea for introducing a Lady Deadpool, guys. Lady Deadpool. 

So, what’s a little canon-smashing between friends, right? 


	10. Chapter 10

Forge stared in fascination at Cable’s back. “Show me again,” he said urgently, pointing to the line of raw skin beside the infected flesh. “Right here. Can you target right here?”

Jane sighed and nodded before she put her hand beside where Forge was pointing and pushed at the viral circuits infesting the skin. It was getting harder and harder to focus on the fine detail work of the infection and her head was starting to hurt, but she wasn’t about to tell anyone that. Slowly, the circuits began to work back on themselves, retreating from their previous location and leaving exposed tissue that bled. She heard Cable grunt softly and winced, trying to soften the edge of her push so the circuits would move more slowly without scraping on his nerves. 

“That’s incredible.” Forge watched with avid eyes for a few seconds, then said, “Can you direct their growth, too? Or just force them back?”

“I can turn them on and off,” Jane said. She was so tired that even talking was an effort and she felt her control on the techno-organics slip. She gasped when Nathan choked off a groan of real pain, his head down on his forearms. “I’m sorry,” she said frantically as she let go of her control and the circuits returned to their dormant field-maintained state. “God, I’m so sorry, Nathan.”

“It’s okay.” His voice was a rasp, but he smiled at her when he lifted his head. “Maybe we should take a break.”

“Maybe you can try on the rats for a while,” Forge suggested and Nathan made a warning sound in his throat. “Or maybe later,” the inventor added quickly with a sheepish grin. “Sorry, I just get excited.”

Nathan rolled onto his side with a sound that might have been pain, then stopped there and gave Jane another strained smile. “You did good,” he told her softly. “Your technique lets us clean up a lot more in less time than the way we were doing it.”

“With more blood loss,” muttered Hank from further back in the room.

“I think I have a fix for that, too,” said Forge quickly. “It’s why I was hoping Jane was still up for working on the rats.” He walked out of the room, then turned and came back when no one followed him. “C’mon, let me show you.” 

“Do I have to?” Nathan muttered, more to himself than to anyone else, and swung his legs down out of the bed’s field once he was sure he had his barrier firmly in place again. He looked up and smiled when Jane handed him his shirt. “Thanks.”

“Did I hurt you too much?” Jane asked softly. He shook his head and slipped his arm around her when she pressed closer to him. “I’m so sorry. I slipped.”

“It happens,” he said and gave her shoulders a squeeze. They walked after Forge and Beast into the lab area Forge had set up with stasis-field cages for mice, rats, and rabbits. “Dammit, Forge, rabbits?”

“Hank wouldn’t let me use cats,” Forge said defensively. “I needed something with a higher body mass than rats and capuchins are just too expensive.”

“Possums,” said Jane. “They’re everywhere, they breed like crazy, and nobody minds when they die.”

“And they’re marsupial,” put in Wade cheerfully as he spun in one of Forge’s computer chairs. “The only marsupials native to North America. Pouches split WIDE open and they have litters of like fifteen at a time. Babies the size of grains of rice.” 

“Who invited you?” Forge asked him, clearly nonplussed.

“Linn,” Wade replied with a grin visible through the mask. “She loves getting to spout off about all the research she did for the Centaurians. There are spreadsheets, y’know. She made spreadsheets to average lifespans and fertility cycles. She’s nuts.”

A beat of silence answered him and Nathan said carefully, “Desna?”

“More or less,” agreed Wade.

“Someday, someone’s going to explain to me how you were damaged so thoroughly and still manage to breathe,” snorted Forge. “Anyway, look.” He half-dragged the group over to the cages of half-mechanical rats. “This series doesn’t even have their stasis fields on. They’re almost perfectly in balance between the infection and their own regeneration.” He reached in to pick up one of the rats and held it up so Nathan could see it better. Its entire left side had been consumed by techno-organic circuitry and it blinked at him with one glowing yellow eye, its whiskers twitching.

“I see the family resemblance,” Wade smirked.

“So,” Cable said, ignoring Wade, “if you put them in a stasis field like this, what happens?”

“They regenerate faster than the virus can consume,” said Forge with glee in his voice. He put the rat back in its cage and turned a dial near the base. The pink-purple field sprang into existence and the rat immediately began to squeak in distress and scratch at the edges of its circuits. As they watched, the circuits began to flake off and shed into patches at the bottom of the cage--bloody patches and the rat never stopped squeaking.

Jane turned away and Nathan hugged her with one arm, trying not to react. It was not a comfortable experience to watch this rat forcibly removing its own skin and flesh, only to have it grow back normally again. It gave him hope that maybe he could eventually be free of his own infection, but the pain involved was entirely too obvious. “Where did you get the regeneration DNA?” he asked after a few moments of trying to swallow his own bile.

“Wade,” said Wade. “I donated some tissue a while back when Forge was experimenting with genetic splicing. Wolverine donated some, too, didn’t he?”

Forge nodded. “His didn’t take to the growth medium, though.”

“Didn’t take or took too well?” Deadpool grinned. “Last thing the world needs is another tiny Wolvie running around yelling at people.”

“Right after there being another Wade Wilson running around being a smartass,” retorted Forge.

Nathan nodded slowly and looked down when Jane turned back to look at the rat again, her eyes wide. “You injected little bits of Wade into that rat?” he asked Forge.

“Actually, I infected them with a genetically modified MC virus with bits of Wade’s DNA grafted in.”

“He made them sick with me!” Wade said in delight. 

“Well,” Forge said, his expression frustrated, “technically, I made them better with you. It’s a beneficial infection combating the malignant one.”

“When you say MC,” Hank said slowly, “you mean  _ Molluscum Contagiosum _ , don’t you?” When Forge nodded, he said, “That’s a skin virus. Does the regeneration work deeper than the skin?”

Forge paused. “I… haven’t actually let one fully recover yet. I’m still working up to it.”

“So it could come back even after the surface infection has been regenerated?” asked Cable.

Forge made a frustrated face and shrugged. “I suppose it’s possible. I won’t know without further testing.”

Nathan hummed in his throat and sighed, leaning back on his heels. Jane leaned with him and he found himself smiling a little, glad she was there. “This is big,” he said finally. “You’ve done so much and I appreciate all of it.”

“But you want to see a cured rat before you want to try it on yourself,” Forge said with a small smile. “I get it, man. I don’t blame you at all.” He looked down at the rat, which was still frantically scratching itself bloody. “Sorry, buddy,” he said softly. “I suppose that means more testing for you.”

Xavier’s mental call rocked over all of them and Nathan winced against it.  _ “X-Force and X-Men, please report to the hangar bay immediately. _ ” 

“Work, work, work,” muttered Wade. “C’mon, guys. Let’s go.”

 

***

 

Neena, Sam, and Dopinder were just arriving in the hangar bay when Wade, Nathan, and Jane came up from Forge’s lab. When she spotted Jane, Neena’s face split into a wide grin and she ran to hug her friend. “Good to see you up,” she whispered and Jane hugged her back just as tightly. 

“Good to be up,” she answered.

“You, too, grumpy,” Neena said and punched Nathan in the shoulder. He smiled at her. “So that’s what it looks like when he smiles,” she whispered to Jane conspiratorially. “Scary.”

Jane grinned and they turned to watch as Professor Xavier and Storm crossed the hangar bay floor to stand in front of the Blackbird. When both teams were assembled and quietly waiting, Storm said, “Some of you know my concerns regarding the Morlocks, the renegade mutants living beneath New York. While I had hoped the rumors I have been hearing were unfounded, there has been a new development and we must act quickly. Morlocks have been confirmed seen in Manhattan and are currently converging on Central Park in an apparent attempt at a territory grab. There are innocents in the crossfire, both human and mutant alike.” A ripple of unease moved through the hangar and Jane leaned closer to Neena, who hugged her. “I know some of you are still injured,” Storm added in a gentler voice. “I would not ask you put yourselves at risk. But those who can must accompany us to Manhattan immediately.”

Cable stood up a little straighter and looked back at his team, saw Jane still tucked against Neena’s body. “Dopinder,” he said and the cabbie lifted his head, eyes hard and eager. “I want you to stay with here with Jane. The two of you can drive the van back and support us from headquarters.” Dopinder’s disappointment was tangible in the air, but he nodded resignedly. “The rest of you, let’s pack up.”

“Excuse me,” Wade said. “Mister Cable, sir. But I think I’m in charge and I say you should stay with Dopinder and Jane. We don’t want you bleeding all over the battle unless you actually get shot.” He made grabby hands at chest height and added, “And I think the gun should come with me.”

“I’m not dead yet,” Nathan snorted and dropped a fist lightly against the top of Deadpool’s head. “I’m coming. No arguments. You want the gun, you’ve gotta deal with me.” As the rest of X-Force disbursed to pack up, he turned back toward Jane and Neena. “Neena, I’ll let you do what you want. If you want to stay with Jane, that’s fine.”

Neena paused and considered, her arms still around Jane. “I want to stay with Jane,” she murmured, “but my gut says to go with you. I think you’re going to need all the luck you can stand for this one, Nathan.”

“Then I’ll be glad to have you along,” Nathan smiled. Neena smiled back, a slightly brittle expression, then nodded to him and slipped away, leaving him to face Jane. “Will you be okay with Dopinder?” he asked.

“We’ll be fine,” Jane assured him with a grin. “I like Dopinder. He’s terrified of me and it’s almost as fun as teasing Sam.”

Nathan made a face and beeped the end of her nose with his finger. “Be nice. Don’t scare the wheelman too badly. We need him.”

“Fine,” she sighed and rolled her eyes, then grinned at him. “Be careful, okay? I’m sending my girlfriend with you and I’d like her back in one piece.”

“So, it’s like that, huh?” Nathan smiled and leaned a little closer. “Maybe I should have kissed you when I had the chance.” 

Jane snorted at him and swatted his face lightly, making him turn away. “I told you before. If I wanted to kiss you, you’d know about it.” When he grinned at her, she smiled more gently. “Besides,” she whispered, “we both know I’m not her.”

“No,” he agreed softly. “But you really do have an awesome ass when you run.”

 

***

 

_ “C’mon, Linn. You can do it. I know you can. Let it go.” _

You start singing Frozen and I will kill you.

_ “How about Yentl instead?” _

 

Sometimes when she woke up in the night, she forgot.

She forgot the unending heat. She forgot the burning stink that filled her face with agony. She forgot the scent of clean air entirely, forgot to be nauseated by the smell.

She forgot the golden light.

She forgot his smile.

She forgot.

And what did it matter if she forgot. He was dead. Consumed by the virus that had eaten his flesh and turned him into more mechanical monster than man. 

Nathan Dayspring was dead.

She had fled that reality months ago, escaped into a past that bore so little resemblance to her world that it was hard to resolve this New York with her own. But it was still her city. Still the tunnels of her childhood, the gasping breaths of ocean in the bay that had lulled her to sleep her whole life. New York was her lifeblood and she would know it, no matter how dramatically time and circumstances had changed it.

“Awake?”

Aliya opened her eyes to stare quietly into the darkness. “Awake,” she acknowledged in a low voice. Tonight was not a night she had forgotten him. Tonight was a night she ached with remembrance. “What need?”

“Sarah moves.”

“So soon?”

“Yes.”

“Daylight?”

“Yes. She calls.”

She rolled herself into a seated position and hugged her knees to her chest. She let her shoulders arch, felt her wings open and stretch in the cramped space. “Good. I come.”

More than twenty-five hundred years in the future, she had been known as Aliya. She still used the name, still thought of herself in those terms. Her tribe name had been Jenskot, when she was the wife of the Askani’Son and mother of his children. Now, she was just Aliya. Daughter of no one, wife of none, mother to nothing but corpses.

She followed the hunched messenger, a twisted creature known simple as Gath. It had named itself, it said, having no family and no parents to grant it a name. It was a weak hydro-kineticist, able to ice over still water or make frost patterns on glass. It had attached itself to her shortly after her time-slip into the past, followed her through the subway tunnels until she had discovered and joined with the mutants she found there, the Morlocks.

When the tunnel opened into an underground plaza, Aliya motioned Gath away and walked alone through the milling crowds of misshapen mutants, those too visually warped to pass for human on the surface. In this time, Aliya was one of them with her narrow, swift wings. Not like her own time when mutants were as variable as wildflowers. Several mutants moved from her path when they saw her coming until she stood face to face with the leader of the Morlocks, Sarah. “Gath said you were looking for me.”

Sarah stood up straighter and her large, oddly shaped eyes traveled over Aliya’s face, down her shoulders and body, then back up. “You are rested and ready?”

“Would I be here glaring at you if I wasn’t?”

Sarah’s sharp teeth flashed in the dim light. “Too long we have been in shadows. Today, we shall see morning and a new dawn.” She reached up to her shoulder, grasped one of the sharp bone spurs that jutted from under her skin and snapped it off with a quick motion, held it aloft over her head and let out a long, ululating cry that was quickly picked up in the crowd around her. “Take to the sky, my wings, my eyes. Today is a new day.”

“A day for blood and conquest,” Aliya agreed quietly, then raised her sword and echoed the call before pulling her mask down over her face and sprinting lightly for her exit. She threw herself up the abandoned elevator shaft to burst from the half-demolished building on the edge of the slum. She perched on the edge of a crumbling wall, her sword out and steady as she swept her gaze over the streets of Manhattan. The time had come.

A time to forget.


	11. Chapter 11

By the time the X-Jet hovered over Central Park and Storm and Cannonball were circling the area, the park was swarming with Morlocks. There were almost a dozen airborne mutants, several of whom started taking potshots at the jet and the two flying team members with everything from globs of acid to standard bullets. Forge put the jet close enough to the ground for the rest of the teams to jump safely, then pulled back up to provide cover.

On the ground, Cable scanned the panicked crowds, picking out the visible mutants and sorting threat levels in his head. The pair of pyrokinetics needed to go down quickly, along with the teleporter who kept materializing inside of people. “Domino,” he called and she looked where he was pointing at the randomly exploding people. “Teleporter.”

“On it,” she called back and sprinted for where she thought he might come in next.

“I’ve got the firebugs,” Deadpool informed him, already heading toward them.

Overhead, a clap of thunder drew his attention and Nathan looked up to see Storm gathering her namesake around her, her hands wreathed in electricity and her hair flowing around her. Cannonball was wrestling with a mutant with wings like a wasp while Storm started directing her lightning bolts at the other fliers.

“Nathan!” Beast’s shout brought him back to the immediate battle and Nathan looked up in surprise. Something was coming at him. Something with wings like a falcon and a sword held out to the side, ready and gleaming.

Something that looked weirdly like Wade with wings.

Confused, it took him a few seconds longer than usual to jam his gun up to his shoulder and aim, but by the time he had, the stooping figure had pulled up, her wings flaring in a dark frame of her black-and-red suit, the red mask over her face obscuring even the location of her features beyond a shadow of her nose and the white ovals of her eyes. She stopped in midair, back-winged from him and Nathan took the opportunity she had presented.

Dialed to five, the gun kicked and blasted her backward out of the air.

“You shot me!” yelled Wade from somewhere else and Nathan glared at him.

“I did not.”

Someone screamed, sounding vaguely reminiscent of the Wilhelm scream before Wade stomped over, flicking blood from his katana. “You fucking did so. Look!” Before Nathan could protest, Wade reached down into the rubble of a shattered statue and pulled the winged mutant out by the scruff of her suit collar. Up close, the suit was unmistakably identical to Wade’s though clearly cut to fit a woman wearing some level of armor underneath. “There are millions of mes out there, moron. And you just killed one of the pretty ones.” He hefted her into a fireman’s carry and keyed his comm unit. “Forge, I need a pickup. Man down. Woman down. Deadpool down.”

“What?” asked Forge in confusion.

Nathan sighed in frustration. “Can’t this wait until after we’ve locked down the park?”

Wade turned to regard him seriously and Nathan couldn’t help but stop and stare. “You’re going to want her safe,” the mercenary said quietly. “Trust me on this, dude.” Finally, the jet hovered overhead and dipped low enough for Wade to catch the dangling rope ladder and climb up, still carrying the unconscious woman.

A mutant with what looked like skin made of porcupine quills rushed at Cable and he sighed, backhanding his attacker into unconsciousness before scooping him up and tying him to a park bench. “Why do I even try to argue?” he muttered to himself and returned to the battle before him.

***

On board the X-Jet, Wade slung his burden to the floor and checked to make sure her wings weren’t damaged or crushed under her. “Where’s the first aid kit?” he yelled at Forge.

“Straight back, left of the door,” the pilot replied. “What the hell’s going on?”

“Nathan tried to kill an OFC,” Wade said and ripped the first aid kit from its moorings. “Lucky for him, she’s stubborn, semi-indestructible and a plot point.” He worked open the suit by a hidden zipper down the front and pulled up the hood to check the face underneath. “Damn. I wasn’t kidding,” he muttered. “She is pretty.” He shook his head and continued to strip her, searching for the latches in her armor so he could check her heartbeat and for other injuries. The blast of Cable’s gun had caught her right across the chest plate and it had done what it was designed to do: distribute the impact across her body. While no single point had been pierced, her skin was already purpling with a bruise that would probably cover her from neck to navel for weeks.

When Wade’s fingers found the pulse in her throat, her hand snapped up and grabbed his wrist, slipped around his thumb and bent it backward sharply. He yelped as his thumb broke, but didn’t move away from her or let her go. “Easy, lady, I’m trying to help! Love the suit, excellent color choices. Who’s your tailor? I’m just so tired of fussing with the seams, I should really get someone.”

“Get off of me, you adolescent zit factory,” she snapped and kicked with her feet, trying to get her knees up into his stomach to push him away.

“Hey, I’m well beyond the zit stage!” Wade protested and squirmed to the side to plant one hip in her stomach, pressing on the bruise and making her cry out. “I’m more partial to the porridge-face and avocado references. At least those aren’t ageist.” He kept his hand over her neck, not pushing the advantage but not really willing to let her go, either. “Calm down, geez.”

“I will not calm down,” she spat. “I will, in fact, calm UP.” She heaved up with her core and kicked out, throwing Wade across the bay and landing on her feet, crouched with wings mantled slightly.

“ _Stargate SG-1_ reference, nice.”

The woman paused, her expression genuinely surprised. “You… you got that reference?”

“Teal’c is classic,” Wade said seriously with a nod. “Browder was good, but you can’t beat MacGyver in space.”

She held up one hand and rapidly flicked her fingers up and down in a counting gesture, then glared at him. “It’s not still on the air. There’s no way.”

“Oh, hell no.” Wade rocked to his feet and dusted himself off. “They got canceled years ago, but ScyFy still has them in reruns.” He held out a hand to her. “Wade Wilson. Deadpool, Earth-616 and three-quarters.”

“Aliya Dayspring,” she replied carefully and reached to shake his hand. “Deadpool, Earth-4018.”

“I don’t think I’m familiar with the timeline for 4018,” Wade admitted when she stood back again. “You’re pretty far from your future, though. What brought you here?”

“Tired of looking death in the face and getting laughed at,” Aliya sighed. “Not Lady Death. I haven’t been quite bad enough to get her attention directly, but still. Even a minor death’s laugh is frustrating after five years or so.”

“Dayspring, Dayspring,” Wade muttered, tapping his chin with one finger. “I swear I know that name. Go by anything else, besides Deadpool?”

“Jenskot,” she said quietly. “But I haven’t used it for years.”

“Jean Scott?” Forge called back. “As in Grey and Summers?”

“My husband’s parents,” Aliya said with a nod. “I took it to honor them. And to piss Nathan off, but that’s ancient history. Or future history, I guess.” She grinned sadly. “He refused to use it.”

“Nathan.” Wade slowly started to smile. “I knew he was going to want you alive. You’re married to Nathan Dayspring?”

“I was.” She turned her face away and closed her eyes, visible pain crossing her expression. “He’s dead now, along with the rest of Clan Chosen. I’m only alive because I ran.”

“You great feathery dolt,” Wade grinned. He came across the distance between them and held her face in his hands, making her look at him and squishing her cheeks. “I love you so much I could kiss you.”

“I’ll spit in your mouth,” she mumbled from between distorted lips.

“I’d expect nothing less.” While Aliya watched him with wary eyes, Wade turned and strutted up to the cockpit. “How are they doing down there?” he asked Forge.

“It looks like the main push is falling back,” the pilot said, pointing. “They’ve taken down most of the fliers now and the shock troops are getting outmaneuvered.”

“You picked the wrong side, Polly Pool,” Wade commented dryly as he watched the movements of mutants on the ground. Aliya didn’t answer and Wade blinked, turning to look back over his shoulder. The bay behind him was empty and he sighed, dropping his chin to his chest. “Dammit, now she’s gonna go off and get herself killed for real.”

***

Wade Wilson wasn’t the first Deadpool Aliya had encountered, besides herself. Their varying levels of self-awareness, rotten luck, and mischievousness meant many of them wandered between timelines and different Earths, messing with each other and events as they went. She knew she was one of the few timelines which deviated from some form of Wilson’s Deadpool, being herself unrelated to Althea, the woman from whom she’d inherited the identity or Wanda Wilson, who had granted the identity to Al almost a decade before Aliya herself had been born. They were one of the rarer lines of Lady Deadpools, little as she liked the term.

Slowly, she circled the battlefield that had once been a peaceful park. Forge’s assessment had been true: the Morlocks were falling back against the concentrated and coordinated defenses of the X-Men and X-Force teams. She pressed her lips together tightly and let her eyes relax, seeking the familiar mental signature that would identify Sarah. Her own abilities were varied, centering primarily on mental powers: she was a low-power telekinetic and a mid-range telepath in addition to her accelerated healing. She wasn’t anywhere near the level of healing Wanda or even Althea had shown during their terms as Deadpool, but given time and enough food and water and she could probably regenerate most damage. She was thankful for it: it was probably why she was still breathing after the blast from Cable’s gun.

Cable. She shook her head and dispelled his face from her mind. He wasn’t her husband. He belonged to Earth-616 or potentially one of the futures it spawned, not her own timeline. He was not her Nathan Dayspring.

He wasn’t her Cable.

She swallowed hard on the bitter anger and grief that rocked her. “Of all the rotten timelines, I had to fall into yours,” she hissed through her teeth and circled back around, still looking for Sarah.

Something slammed into her back, just between her wings and Aliya screamed in surprise, a sound like a startled raptor. Arms wrapped around her chest and the pressure increased as her attacker continued to push her groundward with a force like a freight train. She tried to claw at the hands, reached over her shoulder seeking eyes or nose to tear at. Whoever had her was determined to bring her down and kept his face out of her reach. She looked down and saw the hard bedrock of Central Park coming up fast and let out another scream, tucked herself into a ball and prayed her wings wouldn’t break.

The sound of their impact rolled through the park and the Morlocks scattered, finally admitting defeat. If Deadpool was down, there wasn’t much hope left.

***

Nathan and the rest of X-Force circled back toward the cleared space where the Blackbird waited. Beast was half-carrying one of the Morlocks, a woman with bone spurs jutting from the points of her skeleton at shoulders, knees, elbows, and hips. Storm was escorting a few of the fliers down in a bubble of intense electricity and caged lightning. Negasonic Teenage Warhead and Yukio had a small collection of children, all under the age of fifteen and most of them coming willingly. Beside where the X-Jet was parked, Sam Guthrie was wrapped tightly around a struggling, flopping woman with arched wings that Nathan recognized as the woman he had shot out of the air. The one Wade had claimed was Deadpool.

“I’ll fuck your balls right out of canon, you overgrown matchstick!” she was screaming at Sam.

“She talks like Wade,” Nathan muttered to himself. “I wonder if she’s as crazy as Wade.”

“She seems to be,” put in Storm as she landed beside him. “She also appears to share his capacity for regeneration, though not his speed. Cannonball broke her right wing when they landed, but it seems to have already knitted.”

“Should we plan on locking them up at the school?” Cable asked and Storm nodded.

“It’s the most secure location for them right now. I don’t relish calling in the authorities on this, given the rather public mishandling of the Icebox situation.” She glanced at him and he tried not to smirk back.

“I don’t suppose we have any of those power suppressing collars,” Neena said as she walked up next to Nathan with an unconscious mutant over her shoulders. “This guy’s gonna teleport the second he wakes up.”

“Maybe we should have hired Leech,” said Wade as he walked over to them. “Or at least kept him on retainer. I suppose we could just keep hitting him in the face every time he starts to wake up.”

“Or,” Beast said with an ironic tone in his voice, “we could properly sedate him until we arrive.” He held up a hypodermic filled with a clear liquid and gestured to it with his opposite hand.

“It’s more fun to hit him,” Wade said, disappointed.

“A little help!?” Sam cried from where he was still trying to hold onto the flailing mutant.

Nathan glanced at Wade, who gestured gallantly. “Be my guest, big guy. Try not to break her too much. She’s practically family.”

Shaking his head, Nathan crossed to where Sam and the Deadpool-esque clad mutant were still struggling. He unslung his gun and let the muzzle press against the back of her head while Sam leaned back. “That’s enough,” he said quietly.

He hadn’t expected her to react with anything but more vitriol and fighting, so when she went utterly still and pressed her masked face to the pavement, Nathan had to struggle with his own surprise. She didn’t move, even as Sam slowly let her go and stood up. Once Sam had backed away, Cable said in the same quiet voice, “Can you stand?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Don’t fight me and I won’t hurt you.” She didn’t move until he stood back slightly and the muzzle of his gun left her skin. He watched as her wings folded carefully along her back, then she tucked her legs under her body and slowly stood up. “Turn around.”

It was Wade’s mask that looked at him, but from at least five inches below where Wade’s head usually was, which still left her tall for a woman. She was maybe an inch shorter than Jane, which put her almost at the same height he remembered for Hope. The thought pulled on him and Nathan sighed, trying to push it away. Was he going to compare every woman he met to his wife? “Give me your hands,” he said.

"Daddy gonna tie me up?” she said in a pouty tone as she offered him her wrists.

“I do not need a second Wade,” he snapped at her. “One is plenty.” He still had a pair of electric cuffs in his bag, so he pulled it around to retrieve them.

“Fanny pack!”

“I can still shoot you.”

“Promises, promises.”

“I like her,” Wade whispered to Storm, who rolled her eyes.

Nathan eyed the woman who continued to stand there, waiting for him to cuff her. There was something painfully familiar about her and he didn’t think it was just her similarities to Wade. “Do you have a name?” he asked as he wrapped the cuffs around her wrists.

“Deadpool.” There was a smirk in her voice that made him glare at her. To his surprise, she made a soft, stuttering sound, almost a sob and swallowed. “Aliya,” she whispered.

“What did you say?” Cold flashed through him and Nathan found himself grabbing her by the back of the hood, dragging her until he could slam her head against the side of the jet. “Say it again.”

“Nathan,” she gasped. “Please.”

He snatched the lower edge of her mask and pulled it up over her head, stared into her face, willed what he had heard to be real. The blue-green eyes that stared back at him were too wide. The scars were wrong, three horizontal ones across her forehead replaced by one long spiral along her neck as if someone had tried to open her jugular and missed. Unable to resist, Nathan reached and held her jaw in his hand, forced her to face him without looking away even though she had shown no sign of wanting to look away. “Hope,” he whispered.

“Aliya,” she replied softly. “You aren’t my Cable. I wish you were, but you aren’t.”

“How…”

“I’m from Earth-4018,” she said and her voice was urgent. “Nathan, listen to me. I’m not Hope. I’m not your wife.” Her voice broke when she said it and he stared as tears started to slip down her face. “Nathan Dayspring is dead,” she whispered, heartbroken. “I killed him myself.”

“And I held Hope Aliya Summers’ corpse in my arms,” he hissed back. “I found her dead beside our son, Tyler.” Her eyes snapped shut in pain. “I came here to stop it,” Nathan continued, “and I did. I know they’re alive.” Aliya was trembling now and he leaned forward to press his forehead against hers, drowning in the familiarity of her scent, her nearness. “How do you know I’m dead? Maybe something changed.” Tears continued to run down her face and Nathan reached to brush them away with his thumbs. “Maybe we’re here for a second chance.”

“You,” she whispered in a harsh voice, “are not my Nathan. I’m sorry.” Aliya’s head ducked down and she took a few, rough breaths. “Please. I can’t. I just can’t.”

Nathan twitched when a hand touched his shoulder and he looked up at Hank, who smiled carefully, gently. “Let her go,” he whispered. “We need to clean up here and get home.”

“I…” Cable looked back at the woman with his wife’s face and his friend’s mask. With a monumental effort, he pulled back his hands and stepped away. “Alright. Let’s go.”

 


	12. Chapter 12

 

**A/N: Warnings for angst and bedsharing.**

 

  


[Originally posted by rav3nb1ack](http://tmblr.co/ZBE1tc2YelUdQ)

 

When her phone rang, Jane and Dopinder were cruising through New York City, competing for who could sing Billy Joel’s “Innocent Man” louder. She would have been winning if the phone hadn’t started to jump in her hand and cut off the music. “It’s Nathan,” she said and Dopinder shut up immediately so she could take the call. “Hey, handsome, what’s shakin’?”

“Where are you?” 

“About fifteen minutes outside of Manhattan, probably another half hour to home depending on traffic.” Jane worried at her lip with her teeth, considering the tone of Nathan’s voice. Something was up, but she wasn’t sure if she should ask. 

“Good. I… I’d like to see you when you get in if that’s okay.”

“Just me?” she asked softly.

“Yes.” There was a strain in his voice she had never heard before and Jane frowned. “I’m sorry. I know this is abrupt.”

“Nathan,” she whispered and cupped her hand around the phone, turned toward the window. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

* * *

 

“I can’t…” his voice cut out for a second and Jane thought it was the phone reception until she heard the hitch in his breathing. “I can’t talk about it on the phone. But I need to talk about it.” They listened to each other breathing for a moment before he added, “I’m sorry to put this on you, Jane. It’s not fair, I know.”

“No, it’s okay,” she said quickly. “Where should I meet you?”

“I’ll meet you out front,” Nathan sighed and Jane could hear the relief in his voice. “I’ll help carry your gear.”

“Okay.” Jane leaned her forehead against the glass of the window for a second, then whispered, “I’ll talk to you soon, Nathan. Take care.”

“You, too.”

“Has something happened?” Dopinder asked nervously when she put her phone back in her lap. 

“Yes, but I don’t know what,” Jane sighed. “I think it’s personal, which at least means nobody died, I think.” She looked up and studied Dopinder for a second. “You’re a guy. Do you understand them?”

“I do not,” Dopinder said with a shrug. “But then, I also tortured and killed my best friend for marrying my love. I may not be the best person to ask.”

“Point taken.”

***

Cable paced the front offices of the X-Force compound, refusing to examine his own mind. He knew there was something wrong with his logic, but he also didn’t want to care about it terribly at the moment. He wanted something secure, something he understood. 

“Hey, boss.” Domino leaned on the door frame behind him and Cable stopped to stare at her. Her expression was carefully composed, neutral but wary. “What’s up?”

“I’m waiting for Jane and Dopinder.”

“You look like you’re a wolf waiting for a food delivery.” 

Something jittered along his spine and Nathan clenched his teeth. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” hissed Neena, “that if you hurt my girlfriend, I will kill you. I know what happened back there was fucked up for you, but you don’t get to fuck someone else up just to balance the scales.” She took a few steps closer and poked him in the chest with a finger. “Remember that Jane’s your friend first, okay? That means you do what’s best for the friendship, not what’s best for you personally.”

Nathan swatted her hand away. “I know that. What do you think I am, Neena, some kind of predator?”

“You’re an old white dude,” she snapped back. “You’re used to getting what you want when you want it and you just had everything you wanted in your hands and she begged you to walk away. That does not give you the right to take what you want from someone else.” When he growled at her, she stood up straighter and glared. “I know Jane. I know she’ll give you exactly what you want, no matter what it costs her. And that’s why I’m here, telling you you’d better not fucking hurt her, Nathan, because I will end you or burn out my luck trying.”

They stood glaring at each other for a few seconds before Nathan felt his fight slipping out of him and he covered his eyes with one hand. “Fine,” he whispered. “I just… I need to talk to her about this. I’ve never needed to talk before. Not like this.”

“Remember to pay attention to what she needs, too,” Neena said in a low voice. “That’s all I’m asking. Remember you’re not the only one with needs.”

Nathan closed his eyes and nodded. “I will.”

“Good.” Neena lifted her chin toward the glass door that fronted the street. “They’re here.”

“Do you want to go first?”

Neena smiled slowly. “Thank you. I appreciate that.” She slipped past him and ran to open the door of the minivan, collected Jane in her arms and they clung to each other, talking animatedly for a few seconds before they kissed.

Nathan watched in silence, missing the feeling of a woman in his arms. Missing the way his wife kissed him. Missing the peace that came with feeling at home beside someone else’s body. Hope’s face… no, Aliya’s face streaked with tears of loss and grief when she looked at him flashed through his mind and he flinched back from it. She loved Nathan Dayspring the way he loved Hope Summers. It was like seeing their reflection in a mirror, but warped and different. A funhouse mirror that was anything but fun.

When he opened his eyes again, Jane and Neena were standing nearby. They stood side-by-side, their fingers entwined while they watched him in varying stages of worry. After a moment, Jane squeezed Neena’s fingers and let her go, walked to him and put her hands on either side of his face. Nathan closed his eyes again, let his chin fall to his chest as she gently drew him down and kissed his forehead. “Tell me everything,” she whispered.

He did. He told her about seeing Aliya coming at him with a sword. He told her about hearing her voice, the confusion, the pain. He told her about hearing her say his wife’s name in his wife’s voice with his wife’s accent and still not being his wife. They went to the gym and walked the track in circles while he talked, just existing. “She’s the only woman I’ve ever loved,” Nathan concluded softly. “I found her dead with our son, gave up everything to know she’s alive including the chance to ever see her again and now… now she’s here, as dead to me as the Hope who knows me.” He paused on the track to cover his face with his hands, breath shaking in his chest. “Jane, I feel like I’m falling apart. It isn’t fair. I don’t know what to do. I can’t just...pretend she isn’t Hope.”

Jane sighed and pulled his hands down from his face. “Nathan, look at me,” she whispered and he did. “She isn’t Hope.” His face closed and he turned his head, but Jane reached and pulled his chin down so he would look at her again. “She isn’t. She said her name was Aliya, right?” When he nodded, she continued, “Then she’s Aliya. Was Hope Deadpool?”

“No.”

“She’s Deadpool,” Jane said firmly. “She may look like your wife and have been married, fallen in love with a man who looks like you, but her story is different from yours. Things have happened to her that never happened to Hope. She is a different person.”

Cable closed his eyes and swayed a little, then leaned to press his lips against her hand. “I know,” he whispered. “I just want her to be. I miss Hope so much and she’s so…”

“Kiss me.” 

He jerked and looked at her in surprise. “What?”

Jane smiled. “Kiss me. You said you’ve never loved another woman the way you love Hope. Kiss me like I’m Hope.”

Nathan stared at her for a long time, then she was in his arms in a rush, her mouth on his and her body pressed against him. He kissed her with all the confusion and longing and frustration tangled inside of him. He kissed her like she was Hope.

But she wasn’t Hope.

Slowly, Nathan backed off from the kiss until they were standing with their foreheads pressed together, both breathless. He didn’t let Jane go, still held her against him as they both tried to catch their breath. “I can’t,” he finally whispered.

“Because I’m not Hope,” Jane said softly. He nodded and she smiled, standing on her toes to kiss his chin. “It would be the same if you kissed Aliya, Nathan. She isn’t Hope, either. She’s like Hope, but so is Wade. So am I, in some of the things you like about me that remind you of her. There are elements of Hope in everyone you know, but none of us are her. None of us can be her.” He hugged her tightly and Jane sighed, leaning against him. “We can only be ourselves. Friends, teammates, lovers, family. Love us the way you love us, not the way you love her.”

“I miss my wife,” he whispered brokenly.

“I know,” she whispered back. “That’s okay. It’s okay to miss her. Just be willing to recognize when you’re missing her and when you’re projecting her on other people.”

Nathan nodded, still clinging to her. After a second, he murmured, “I’m lonely, Jane. I don’t know what to do about it and I’m tired.”

“Stay with me tonight,” she said. “Nothing weird or physical or obligating. Just stay with me and don’t be lonely for a while.”

“What about Neena?”

Jane grinned quietly. “She’ll probably stay, too, if you want her to.”

Nathan tried to smile and shook his head. “Neena hates me, Jane. I don’t think my staying with you would be popular.”

“Neena doesn’t hate you,” Jane said with a smile as she stood back and laced her fingers through Nathan’s. “She blamed you for what happened because it was convenient to do so and she was scared. You may not be her favorite person, but she doesn’t hate you.” She tugged at him gently. “C’mon. You’ll feel better, I promise.”

Nathan sighed and smiled, nodded. “Okay. If you don’t think Neena will kill me in my sleep, anyway.”  
  


***

She had never gotten used to the sensation of flying under someone else’s power. Aliya curled on her side, kept her face to the wall of her cell on the jet as it carried her and her fellow Morlocks away from the city. She could hear Sarah ranting through the door, but she ignored it.

_Maybe we’re here for a second chance._

The hunger in his voice had broken her. The desperate, longing ache in his words still haunted her. He missed his wife the way she missed her husband. Looking into his face was to look at what would have happened to her Nathan had something happened to her. 

_I’d give anything for a second chance._

Aliya stood up and started to pace her cell, trying to stay angry to avoid the grief. The guilt. The memory of staring at the monster that consumed her husband, of seeing the last of Nathan Dayspring vanish into that cold, golden stare. Those last words before she had sliced off his head, drove her second katana deep into his chest. He hadn’t even bled, only oozed a fluid like motor oil or axle grease. 

_I’ve always got Hope for a second chance._

He loved to tease her about her name. It’s why she had so blatantly taken a clan name that honored his parents, just so he’d stop yelling “Hope you’re coming” during sex. 

When the X-Jet landed, Beast and Yukio found Aliya screaming in her cell. She screamed with the anguished keen of a bird of prey that has lost its mate. It took a sedative and Xavier’s mental suppression to calm her enough to bring her inside.

***

“Is every single Deadpool in the multiverse scarred?” 

Wade glanced at the video screen where he was chatting with Yukio. “All of the ones I know of, anyway,” he said. “Some of us are more mutilated than others.”

The pretty girl leaned on her hands and sighed. Her hair had returned to its usual shades of pink and purple. Wade had been meaning to ask if she was a shapeshifter since her hair never seemed to be the same color twice. “You should have heard her, Wade. It was horrible. I mean, she looks normal enough except for the wings. But you look her in the eye and it’s like she’s been--”

“Put through a woodchipper, then an office shredder, then a blender and then had it all spackled to her insides again?”

Yukio nodded. 

“Sort of like your face,” put in Ellie from somewhere else in the room.

Yukio through an eraser at her girlfriend before turning back to Wade with an apologetic smile. “I wish there was something I could do for her,” she said quietly.

“There’s no help for Negasonic Teenage Buttface,” Wade told her reassuringly. “Just hold her hand until she’s Negasonic Senior Citizen Buttface and laugh at her jokes occasionally.”

“Fuck you, Wade.”

“I love you, too, Ellie.”

“I mean Aliya,” Yukio said and Wade refocused. She was clearly concerned and he sighed fondly. It was hard to stay irritated with Yukio around, which explained a lot about Ellie’s milder personality of late.

“I don’t think much short of professional grief counseling and a few kegs of beer will help her much,” he admitted. “I know how I felt when Vanessa got killed and I welcomed death. Still do sometimes.”

“Wade…”

“No, I’m okay.” He waved a hand to dismiss her concern. “I don’t know what I’d feel if I saw Vanessa again only she doesn’t know me. You might want to put a suicide watch on her, though.”

“Deadpool can die?” Ellie asked with an avid note in her voice as she came over to sit next to Yukio.

“Well, I haven’t yet,” Wade retorted. “I don’t know if it works the same way for all the other multiverse Deadpools. I know some of them pass the hood on like a title and my guess would be those Deadpools die easier than me.”

Yukio sat back from the computer, her expression closed and worried. “I’m going to go talk to Ororo,” she said finally and stood up. 

“Yukio,” Ellie sighed in exasperation. “It’s after eleven.”

Her girlfriend looked at her seriously, then glanced at Wade, who smiled. “If there’s a chance she’s hurting that much, Storm will want to know. Thanks, Wade.”

“Anytime. Bye, Yukio.

“Bye, Wade.”

***

“You’re really sure about this.”

Neena grinned and shook her head. “You’re such a stiff, Nathan. Go get ready for bed and chill out. It’s fine.” She was already dressed in a tank top and shorts, her hair in a few loose braids to keep it manageable. Jane sat on the edge of the bed, her own hair loose and shaggy. Nathan looked back and forth between them and shrugged before vanishing into their bathroom. Neena turned to sit down beside Jane and hugged her. “I love you,” she whispered.

“Thank you for understanding,” Jane whispered back.

“He’s my friend, too,” Neena said with a shrug. “I want what’s best for everyone, even if it’s kind of uncomfortable for me.” They snuggled together for a few seconds, then Neena crawled into the bed and settled in, her arms out for Jane. Jane followed her and settled down with her back against Neena’s chest and her girlfriend’s arms around her. “You know one of the things I love best about you?” she whispered in Jane’s ear. When Jane turned her head curiously, Neena grinned. “Your love is logical. You look at people and see what they need and say ‘can I do that? I can do that.’ and then you do it.” She hugged her close. “That’s awesome.”

Nathan came out of the bathroom smelling like baking soda toothpaste and Listerine, with a sheepish expression on his face and wearing plaid pajama pants and a t-shirt printed with the Far Side comic image of a child pushing the PULL door outside a school labeled “School for the Gifted.” “You’re--”

“Nathan, if you ask if we’re sure one more time, I’m locking you out,” Neena snapped. “Get over here and turn off the light.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied and crossed to the bed, clicked off the bedside lamp and slipped into the covers beside Jane. 

“I do not bite unless asked,” Jane informed him when he settled himself on the very edge of the bed, his hands on his chest. “C’mere.” She pulled him closer and snuggled up beside him, her head on his shoulder while Neena followed her into the middle of the bed. 

After a few seconds, Nathan rolled to face her and stroked the side of her face. “Thank you,” he whispered. “Both of you.”

“You’re welcome,” Jane smiled and tucked herself up under his chin. Nathan wrapped his arm around her, paused with his hand on Neena’s hip and then chuckled softly when she pulled his hand around to her side. 

“You’re welcome to touch,” she informed him mildly. “Just don’t get fresh.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“He’s so polite,” Jane whispered to Neena with a gleeful tone in her voice. “I could get used to that.”

“Shut up, you,” Neena snorted and gave her a poke, making her giggle. 

Nathan listened to them teasing each other, settling into the bed, starting to fall asleep. Jane went first, tucked under his chin and with one hand curled over his side. Shortly after that, Neena started to snore quietly, a truly adorable sound. He smiled, listening to their soft sleep sounds. He hadn’t platonically slept with a woman in a long time and never with more than one. He shifted his hand so he could stroke Jane’s hair back from her face. She smiled at his touch and sighed, falling deeper into sleep. “Sleep well,” he whispered to her and kissed her forehead before he slipped his hand around to rest on Domino’s side again. “Both of you.”


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: Warnings for references to animal testing, specifically on rats. Also, the usual levels of angst. Do I really have to warn for angst, guys?**

**[Aliya] Yes.**

**[Wade] At this point? And considering the audience you’ve managed to pull in so far? Probably not.**

**[Aliya] How is my angst less warning-worthy than Nathan’s?**

**[Wade] I never said it was! Just that by the time the readers got to your angst, angst was kind of the reason they were reading. It’s not a warning anymore. It’s more like an ad. Click here for more ANGST!**

**[Linn] Thanks, Wade.**

**[Wade] Anytime!**

  


[Originally posted by masaism](http://tmblr.co/ZPBAds2ETv8NS)

 

Sleeping next to Jane proved a surprising comfort. It became the routine very quickly, with Nathan and Neena bracketing Jane in the middle, though occasionally they ended up in other configurations in a bed that had been big enough for two comfortably but had never been intended to fit three. Especially one Cable’s size. More than once, Nathan had awoken to find Neena sprawled across his body while Jane was tucked against his side. Neena was more likely to end up on top of someone; she liked to joke it made her the cream that floats to the top.

The more he spent time in comfortable closeness with both women, the more Nathan could feel his spine unwinding. It became easier to maintain his telekinetic boundaries, easier to sleep without nightmares. He smiled more, teased Wade almost as much as Wade teased him. He’d even gotten nuts and kissed Wade during a training exercise just to throw him off. It had worked brilliantly. 

His heart still ached with missing Hope and Tyler. He knew it always would to some extent, but it was easier now. Missing them didn’t feel like a burden he was being crushed under. More like a familiar weight on his shoulder. 

* * *

 

Thinking about Hope always lead to thoughts of Aliya. She was still in X-Men custody at the mansion along with the other Morlocks they had captured. X-Force had visited a few times since the battle of Central Park, largely to practice in the Danger Room and for Nathan and Jane to work with Forge and Beast. Every time he was there, Nathan felt the pull to go down to the detention area, to stop outside her cell, to talk to her. He never did.

The same was not true of his team. 

It was Cannonball who first drew his attention to the regular vanishing of X-Force members into the bowels of the mansion. Nathan had looked around the breakfast table during one of their visits and realized Sam was nowhere in sight. “Has anyone seen Sam?” The profound silence that answered him made him pause and look at Jane, who was studying the ceiling with her ‘I know nothing’ expression. “What am I missing?” he asked her flatly.

“Missing?” Latchkey batted her eyes at him and smiled. “I have no idea.”

“Jane…” 

“Sam’s had a crush on one of the Morlocks since the battle,” said Ellie. “Every single time you guys are here, he spends like an hour down there, talking with him.” She reached across the table to swipe the pot of cream cheese and spread a generous helping on her bagel. “The big furry one who cries all the time.”

“Be nice,” Yukio huffed and leaned on Ellie’s shoulder. “Fugue’s just scared. He’s getting a lot better, especially when Sam’s around.” 

“Yeah, well,” Ellie replied and took a bite of her bagel without finishing the sentiment. 

“So he’s downstairs talking?” Nathan clarified and Yukio nodded. Aliya’s face flashed through his mind’s eye and he closed his eyes briefly to push her away. He felt Jane’s hand on his forearm and opened his eyes to smile at her. “What?”

“You should go down and talk to her,” Jane said softly.

Nathan shook his head. “No need. It’d just torture both her and me.”

Jane’s fingers gently squeezed and he sighed when she leaned on his shoulder. “You should go down, Nathan, and talk to her.”

He blinked when Domino stood up to kiss his forehead. “It’s time, boss. Trust me.”

Nathan put his forehead in his hand, elbow on the table for a few seconds while Jane leaned on his arm and Domino ran her fingers over his shoulder. “I don’t see why,” he whispered.

“Because you need it,” Domino said, “and she needs it. It’s time.”

***

Aliya lay on her bed, her back turned to the glass and steel opening of her cell. Her wings ached with lack of exercise. Her stomach had given up aching for lack of food, her plate of breakfast as untouched as the previous night’s dinner. She hadn’t eaten for almost a week and had no intention of starting now. Distantly, she could hear footsteps as people walked past her cell, usually without stopping. It wasn’t a high traffic area, but people did walk around.

When footsteps stopped outside of her cell, she opened her eyes and waited. Sometimes, Professor Xavier would come down and talk to her, trying to coax her to talk to him, to admit her issues and maybe let go of her reasons for hating the surface mutants. He wouldn’t have made footsteps approaching, though. Sometimes it was Storm or Beast coming down for the same reasons. Forge had visited her once, too, asking for samples of her blood, saliva, skin, and hair for his regeneration studies. She’d let him take the samples, much to everyone’s surprise. 

“Aliya.”

His voice ripped through her and she curled up tighter on the bed. “Go away, Cable.”

“I would,” he said softly and she heard the sound of fabric sliding on glass. When she peeked over her shoulder, she saw that he was sitting with his back against the glass wall of her cell, facing away. “I really would, but people I trust said it’s time for us to talk. So I’m here to talk.”

“Talk,” Aliya spat and tucked her chin against her chest. “About what?”

Nathan was quiet for a long time and she slowly checked over her shoulder again, curious in spite of herself. “I found Hope in a foxhole,” he said quietly. “She and her teammates were under fire from Sentinels. J’tue had to be ordered to cease firing on me. She almost took my head off with the last shot. Hope said--”

“‘He looks better with it on,’” whispered Aliya, her eyes closed. “Ivory had to be piggybacked out. She never walked again after that. Spinal damage was too much. Al carried her.”

“Al?” Nathan asked. “I don’t think we had an Al.”

“Althea,” Aliya clarified. “She was Deadpool before me.”

“Wait, Althea?” Nathan turned around and sat facing the cell, his expression surprised. “Blind Al was Deadpool?”

Aliya sat up on the bed and blinked at him. “She wasn’t blind but we did call her Al.”

“Althea is Wade’s roommate,” Nathan said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. “None of us are really sure why, but he was adamant she come with us when we moved into the compound in New York.”

Aliya leaned forward with her elbows on her knees. “That sounds more like Wanda’s mother. Well, adoptive mother.” When Nathan raised his eyebrows, she added, “Wanda Wilson, Deadpool before Althea. I know Wanda’s mom was blind, but I never met her.” She opened her mouth to say more, then stopped and stared at him. Nathan raised his eyebrows, sitting on the floor cross-legged with his shoulder against the glass. “What are you doing?” she finally asked him.

“Talking.” He leaned his head against the glass. “Didn’t your Nathan talk?”

“Of course he did,” Aliya snapped. “He didn’t lock me up, though. Well, not unless something very different was going on.”

“Yeah, I wondered about that,” Nathan smiled. “Hope never attacked me with a katana, either. I guess we really are different.” Aliya watched as he closed his eyes and let out a long sigh. “I miss her.”

“What happened?” Aliya found herself crossing the cell to sit on the other side of the glass from him. She just couldn’t stay mad, not at that voice, that face. 

Nathan let out a low chuckle. “Wade happened. I told you she died, right?” When Aliya nodded, he continued, “I came back to fix it. I had enough juice left in the slider for one trip,” he held up his finger and wagged it for emphasis, “the trip home. But Wade changed everything by getting himself shot. He was going to die. I went back to relive my part in that, saved his life. I felt like I owed him that.”

“Deadpool was going to die from one gunshot?” Aliya asked skeptically and Nathan grinned.

“To be fair, it was my gunshot that would have killed him. And he was wearing one of those power suppressor collars. If he didn’t die from the gunshot, he would have died of the cancer.” Cable tilted his head to grin at her and Aliya had to grit her teeth against the pain that blossomed in her chest at that familiar smile. He was sitting so his right side faced her, his more human side. The side that looked the most like her Nathan. With his shoulder against the glass, she could almost pretend she could touch him. His eyes traveled over her face and then took a concerned tone. “Hey, what is it?”

Aliya turned away so he couldn’t see her expression anymore. “This is cruel and unusual punishment, you know,” she whispered. “Forcing someone to talk to their dead spouse.”

“I’m not your Cable,” Nathan said and his voice was surprisingly gentle. 

“I know. That makes it worse. I’ve already grieved for my Cable. I’ve had time to get used to the idea that he’s gone and now, here you are. Alive, well, still human.”

Nathan sighed. “The infection took over?” he asked softly and she nodded. “How long did it take?”

“About eight years, from the time I met him,” she said. “I had promised him I would kill him if it overtook him. I did.” Her lips curled in a bitter smile. “His last words were how he still had Hope for a second chance. With a capital H.” Aliya met Nathan’s eyes in a pained glare. “He always did enjoy teasing me about my name.”

She was surprised to see how crushed his expression was. He put one hand on the glass like he would have touched her in comfort and she looked away again. “I’m so sorry, Aliya,” he whispered. “If he was anything like me, he never wanted to hurt you.”

Aliya sighed and pulled herself to her feet, walked back to her bed and lay down again. “Go away, Cable,” she said softly. “I’m tired of hurting.”

Without a word, his footsteps carried him away again and Aliya let herself cry.

***

Forge held up the rat on the palm of his hand, his face glowing. “I present to you a healed rat.” He allowed the rat to crawl into Jane’s hands and she held the rodent, petting its scarred head. “W Series two-five-seven-oh, patient B. He shows major scarring from where the circuitry took over and was pushed back again, but beyond that, I can’t find any sign of the virus anywhere in him. He even grew back his limbs and eyes.”

“He looks pretty blind in this one,” Nathan commented dryly, indicating the rat’s milky orb.

“Not a perfect regrowth, sure,” Forge said a little defensively, “but it did grow back. The right one is fine.”

“How long has he been cured and out of a stasis field,” Jane asked as she scratched the rat behind his ears and along his back. 

“About a week. There’s some muscle atrophy in the regrown limbs and he may always be a little myopic and bump into things, but look at him. He’s clean!” Forge gestured happily and the rat squeaked. “He goes through a metal detector like a newborn babe.”

Nathan slowly flexed his left hand, studying the metal tendons. “What about patient A?”

Forge wouldn’t look at him and Nathan sighed, prodding the inventor with his foot. “Cured, but blind in both eyes,” he admitted in a small voice. “Patient C relapsed after two days and the virus was more aggressive, took him over even at the highest stasis settings. It’s like it learned. Patient D relapsed after two days, but the stasis field held it back. He’s still alive, but he looks awful and eats almost constantly. I think the virus is more aggressive and it’s taking more energy out of him to regenerate against it.”

“How many rats in each series?” Jane asked, her voice shaking a little.

“Twenty.”

“How many survived?”

“Eleven.” 

“Cured?” Nathan asked.

Forge looked up at him, then away. “Two.”

Nathan frowned. “Not the best odds, Forge.”

“No,” Forge admitted in a low voice. “But it does give me hope that it can be done at all. We might have better luck with Jane’s help, too. This is just the Wade-series regeneration fighting the infection without any TK interference.”

“Might.”

Forge looked insulted. “I’m going to start a new series first. C’mon, man, give me some credit as a researcher. Two-five-seven-one is going to be the same as this, but with weekly treatments with Jane, if I can borrow her that long.”

“That’s a lot of rats,” Jane said softly as she stroked her thumb over the rat in her hands.

“Yeah,” Forge agreed. “Nice thing is, the snakes still eat them if I cut the mechanics off first.”

“Forge!” snapped Nathan and the inventor looked abashed.

“Sorry.”

“Wade series,” Nathan said and held out his hand to Jane. She passed him the rat, who crawled over his fingers and sniffed the pad of his thumb. “You took samples from Aliya, too. Have there been any results with those?”

Forge shook his head slowly. “Her samples took to the growth medium better than Logan’s, but she’s nowhere near as powerful a regenerator as Wade. I didn’t think it even warranted a series done.”

Nathan watched as the rat worked its way up his wrist, then settled with its head on his pulse with a little sigh. “Could you?” he asked softly. “Maybe half a series? I… call it nostalgia. Call it a hunch. Call it whatever you want, but I’d like to know.”

Forge was quiet for a few moments, then nodded. “Sure. I can do that. How ‘bout five? That’s enough to establish a difference in the data without risking too many rodent lives.” 

“Thanks.”

“Do you want to keep him?”

Nathan looked up from the rat in surprise. “What?”

Forge shrugged and lift his hand for the rat to crawl across. The rat didn’t move, eyed Forge’s hand and then settled back down. “He seems to like you and I’m pretty sure he won’t relapse now. If you’re worried about it, I can rig a small stasis field to go home with you.”

“I don’t need--”

“I’ll take him.” Jane reached and collected the rat from Nathan’s hand. “Little guy’s been through the ringer. He deserves some snuggle time.” She glanced up at Nathan and grinned a little. “Does wonders.”

“That it does,” Nathan sighed and hugged her with one arm.

***

“We’re going home soon. I’ll have to go.”

“Sam stays.”

“I can’t stay. I’ve got stuff I need to do back home.”

“Fugue goes?”

“No, you have to stay here.”

Aliya sighed, listening to this week’s variation on Sam and Fugue’s goodbyes. As little as Fugue showed signs of intelligence in his speech patterns, she knew he was a masterful strategist and artist. His drawings, in particular, were stunningly lifelike and emotional. He just didn’t use words well. It had only taken Sam Guthrie a few moments to recognize the monster’s real heart, even in the middle of a pitched battle. She wondered if Sam was even aware he was empathic.

“Sam lets Fugue out.”

“I can’t.” She could hear his heartbreak. “I wish I could but I can’t. I have to go.”

“Bye, Sam.”

“Bye, Fugue.”

“Come back soon?”

“I hope so.”

Aliya stood and walked to the glass wall of her cell. “Sam?” The young man jerked and looked at her, stopping in his tracks and wiping at his face. “Can I ask you something?”

“You can always ask,” Sam said with a sniff.

Aliya smiled. She liked this kid. “Can you ask Wade to come down before you guys leave? I’d like to talk to him.”

“I’ll ask him.” Sam wiped at his face one more time, then asked, “Do you want me to ask Cable, too?”

“No.” The fondness was fading. “I’d rather forget he existed, to be honest with you.”

“Are you really Deadpool?”

Aliya smiled in spite of her irritation. “Yeah, I am.”

Sam stood in the hallway, studying her. “You’re prettier than Wade. Why couldn’t we have gotten a pretty Deadpool?”

“Instead of one with a face that looks like an omelet?” Aliya chuckled. “He was prettier before that. We should set you and Fugue up with a movie date to watch the Proposal.” She grinned when Sam’s face flushed. “There we go. Now I’m feeling like an actual Deadpool worth the suit.” She lifted her chin toward the exit. “Wade, please. As fun as it is to make a Southern boy blush, I’ve got other fish to fry before the end of this act.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Sam mumbled and trotted off, leaving Aliya to consider what she wanted to say.

“Movie date?” Fugue’s voice drifted over from a few cells down and Aliya grinned.

“Yeah. The works. Popcorn, hot cocoa, a small couch with a big blanket, no chaperons.”

“Sounds nice,” sighed the furry mutant. “Fugue not date.”

“And that’s a fucking shame,” Aliya said softly. “You’re a sweetheart, Fugue. You and Sam are cute together.”

“Yeah?” Fugue’s voice was hopeful and she grinned again.

“Yeah. If we can sort things out for it, I’ll even do your hair for the date.”

“Promise?”

“I promise. You think braids? Or should we try curlers?”

“Box braid?”

“Oh, hell. I don’t know how to box braid. I suppose I could learn beforehand, though.” She paused to consider. “Sure I can’t talk you into a Superman curl in the middle?”

“Aliya bitch.”

“Yup, y’got me pegged.”


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: Warnings for (as always) angst. Also, extensive breaking of the fourth wall, self-references, and--**

**[Wade] Josh Brolin.**

**[Linn] Shut up, Wade.**

**[Wade] C’mon, Linn, you picked the gif for this chapter BEFORE you typed the warnings. It deserves mentioning that Josh Brolin is in this chapter.**

**[Linn] He is not IN the chapter, Wade. He’s mentioned. It’s not the same thing.**

**[Wade] Fine, warnings for MENTIONS of Josh Brolin with his hands all over Ryan Reynolds.**

**[Linn] I give up.**

**[Aliya] *giggling* No, you don’t.**

  


[Originally posted by blueskyandpudding](http://tmblr.co/Z-Q2jq2YJorUX)

 

Wade sat on the floor, his back pressed up against the glass and his legs splayed out into the hallway outside of Aliya’s cell. He had come down when Sam told him she wanted to talk to him and had been waiting for her to respond to his presence for about ten minutes, playing with his phone and humming to himself. He heard movement behind him, then felt the impact of a body against the glass and heard Aliya sigh. When he checked over his shoulder, she was sitting up against the other side of the glass, her wings tucked to the sides and her legs mirroring his position. He grinned. “So.”

“So.”

“Linn’s dropping the plot progression squarely on our shoulders this chapter.”

“Yup.”

“Want to hang her out to dry?”

Aliya chuckled. “A little. But I do have some legit stuff I wanted to talk about.”

“Yeah?” Wade settled back against the glass. “I’m all ears, Lady Me.”

“Call me Lady Deadpool or any variation thereof and I will gut you with a spoon.”

“Why a spoon?”

“It’s dull. It’ll hurt more.”

“Classic.”

Aliya smiled and leaned her head back. Seated, she was almost the same height as Wade. It was a surprisingly nice feeling. After a moment, she frowned and asked, “Are you playing an app game?”

“I made an itty bitty Thanos, wanna see? He plays guitar.” Wade pressed his phone up to the glass and Aliya glared at him over the Sims wandering through the little house. “Sorry, legit talking. Right.”

“So, I came here on the run,” Aliya said quietly as she sat back again. “Not the most noble of motives--that's right, suck it Grammarly, I said MOST NOBLE, not NOBLEST. Fuck you, it's dialog--but hey, I’m here now. I was running from a fucking world without Cable and now I’m in a world WITH Cable and I want to get out again.”

“You’re like a cat with the kitchen door.”

“Pretty much. I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t know what to do now. I can’t live in a world with him. I can’t live in a world without him. I can’t fucking die. What am I supposed to do?” Aliya closed her eyes and thumped her head back on the glass. “I know I’m essentially talking to myself here, but I’m serious. I really don’t know what to do.”

“Well,” Wade said thoughtfully, “you know what I would do?”

“I’m almost afraid to ask.”

“I’d grab that fucker and kiss him. See where it goes. That said, he’s a great kisser.” Wade whistled cheerfully.

“I’m not kissing him,” Aliya said dryly. 

Wade turned around to press his cheek up against the glass and purse his lips at her. “He is a good kisser. He got me in the middle of a training exercise a few weeks ago. I saw stars.”

Aliya turned to face him, surprised. “ _He_ kissed _you_?” Wade nodded with a grin and she raised her eyebrows in a thoughtful expression. “Huh. I wouldn’t have guessed.”

“He’s relaxed a lot in the last few weeks,” Wade said. “He started sleeping with Jane and Neena and that seemed to help.” Aliya opened her mouth and then closed it again, gritted her teeth together and exhaled through her nose shortly. Wade slowly raised his eyebrows and started to grin. “You’re jealous.”

“I am not jealous.”

“You are. Your face is all flushed and you’re breathing funny.” He bounced in place and scooted around to face her more directly. “You want to be the one kissing him.”

Aliya glared. “Don’t be childish.”

“Said Deadpool to Deadpool,” Wade snorted. “C’mon, Aliya. Look me in the eye and tell me honestly. You want to kiss him, don’t you?”

Aliya closed her eyes and ducked her head. “I’d kill to kiss him,” she whispered huskily. “But he’s not my Nathan, Wade. He’s not. He belongs to another time, another place. He belongs--”

“To another Aliya.” Wade nodded slowly. “Aliya Hope Summers. Not Aliya Hope Dayspring. I get it.” He looked down at the phone in his hands and swiped right. “Technically, he doesn’t belong to anyone. Just because he was with Hope doesn’t mean he can’t decide he likes Aliya, too. Maybe even in different ways than he loved Hope.” He watched her face as he added, “Just because you watched Nathan Dayspring die doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy watching Nathan Summers live.”

“Nice!” Aliya looked at him in surprise and Wade nodded.

“Yeah, she’s pretty proud of that line. Anyway.”

“Anyway.” Aliya rocked back and forth for a few seconds, considering his words. “Maybe we can try it if we can loosen up a little. Or a lot. If we can stop looking at each other and seeing the people we lost, maybe we can start seeing each other instead.” She smiled a little. “I would like that. I’ve always liked Nathan besides loving him and your Nathan seems like he’s got a lot in common with mine.”

“Seems nothing,” Wade chuckled. “Just wait until you see the goods.”

“I can still hurt you.”

“You’re on the opposite side of reinforced glass and steel,” Wade snorted. “What are you gonna do? Stare me to death?”

Aliya gave him a dangerous grin, then stood up. She leaned forward slowly, rolled her shoulders forward so her breasts pressed together under her suit. She pursed her lips and made a wet sound, then moaned, “Oh, yeah.”

“OH FUCK.” Wade curled up in a ball. “Nope. Nope. Okay, fine, I’ll be good. Just don’t Meg Ryan me. Please, I’m begging you.”

Aliya chuckled. “I love that you can brag about sex all you want when it pertains to you, but the second it’s sex on a different Deadpool, you have all kinds of hang-ups.”

Wade opened one eye to peek at her. “It’s not that I don’t like it,” he said in a little voice. “It’s that it’s way too close to fantasy fetish material. Seriously, watching yourself get off as a woman? God. It’s like watching Josh Brolin pawing Ryan Reynolds.--See, guys? There it is!--You want to watch but you feel like you’re invading on something sacred, beautiful, and profound.”

“And entirely too sexy for public, I know.” Aliya sat on her bed and stretched her wings out behind her. “I don’t suppose you can make a case for me to get some flying time, can you? I’ve been trapped in this damn cell for two weeks already.”

Wade nodded. “I’ll run it past Mr. Google Chrome.” He paused to consider, then added, “How long are they keeping you down here?”

“No idea,” Aliya said with a shrug. “Kinda like unlawful detention, don’t you think? It’s not like they’ve got any kind of government oversight for treatment of prisoners or anything.”

“But you’re actually getting fed and not being subjected to any form of rape or torture, so there’s that.”

Aliya snorted. “Depends on how you define torture.”

Wade shrugged. “I’ll do what I can, Fluffy. If they let you out, be good, okay? It’s nice to see another Deadpool around sometimes. I’d hate to hear they decided to incinerate you or something.”

“I’ll try,” she said dryly and they grinned at each other.

“Passing the torch?”

“Passing the torch.”

Wade walked out and dropped three asterisks behind him.

***

Jane slowly reached up over her head, then rolled down to touch her toes. She hung there for a few seconds, upside-down and studying the dull red slashes that covered her legs. The stitches were finally to the itchy, falling-out stage and her ribs didn’t hurt anymore. Hank had cleared her to start running again and she was looking forward to it. She was dreading it, too. Four weeks without regular exercise had caused a distinct freeze-up in her hips and knees. She was also looking forward to the chance to actually shave her legs without catching on the ends of stitches.

She had been walking with Nathan and Neena in the afternoons and evenings sometimes, both on the track and down in Central Park. They had become amazingly comfortable together, talking and laughing and sometimes just being quiet together while they walked at whatever pace Jane set. It had become common knowledge that if anyone was looking for either Domino or Cable, they were both sleeping in Latchkey’s apartment. Every night. Jane had started to wonder how she ever slept alone.

Slowly, she rolled back up from her stretch and eyed the track. She had promised to go slow for her first run and to stop if anything hurt. No matter how many times she had assured them that she would be fine to run alone, Nathan had wandered into the gym around the same time she had, claiming that he was only there for the weights and Neena was just now coming in wearing her yoga clothes and trying to look innocent.

“You guys,” Jane half-whined, exaggerating her irritation. “I’m fine. I can do this on my own.”

“Oh, I know,” Neena said quickly. “You’re totally doing this on your own. There’s no way in fuck you’ll catch me running.”

“I still run like an orangutan,” Nathan called from under the leg press.

“You do not,” laughed Jane. She curled a finger at Neena and laced her fingers through her girlfriend’s. “I’m fine,” she whispered.

“I know,” Neena whispered back and kissed her slowly, “and we just want to be here to witness your fine-ness.”

Jane smiled and leaned close, rocking a little. “Thank you. For everything.”

“Of course,” Neena murmured. “I love you.”

Jane closed her eyes with a small smile and whispered, “I love you, too.”

Neena’s eyes flashed open in surprise. “What?”

Jane took a shaky breath and continued, “I’ve been thinking about it a lot. About… about how I feel about you and how I feel about Nathan and I how I feel about… everyone, I guess. And I know that I love people. I love my family. I love my friends. But…” she paused to curl one hand in Neena’s tank top, just above her sternum, “this is different. What I feel about you is different.” She peeked up and was surprised to see tears running slowly down Neena’s face. “I love you. I was… I was gonna tell you when it was special but no time ever seemed special enough and I’m tired of waiting to tell you.” 

Neena framed her face with her hands and kissed her, long and slow and sweetly. “You didn’t have to,” she whispered. “I would have loved you anyway.”

“I know,” Jane said and found herself crying, too. “I think that’s one of the reasons I do.”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Nathan’s voice came to them from across the track and they both looked up, wiping at tears. “I thought this was a running session. What’s with the crying on the track?” He reached and brushed his thumb over Jane’s cheek. 

“I’m in love,” Jane said with an exaggerated shrug before flopping her arms to her sides. She grinned at him, then grabbed his shirt and dragged him down to kiss her. “I love you, too,” she whispered.

“Whhaaahuh?” 

“He’s so articulate,” Neena mused and dragged Jane back to her chest. Jane went with a giggle and leaned her head back against Neena while Nathan tried to recover from her words. 

Nathan wavered a little, standing there and watching them both with wide eyes. “I think I’m confused,” he said finally.

“I told Neena I love her,” Jane explained quietly and grinned as Neena hugged her tighter. “And I’m telling you that I love you, too. I love your friendship and the feeling of having you in bed with us. I love hearing what you’re thinking. It’s okay if you don’t feel the same way, but I wanted you to know.”

After a few seconds of just processing the information, Nathan stepped closer and kissed her. “I love you,” he whispered, “the way I love you. Which isn’t the same way I loved Hope, how I still love Hope. It’s not the same way I love Neena,” he peeked over Jane’s shoulder to see the startled expression on Domino’s face, “because I do love her, too. However it is that I love you, know that I do.” He grinned when Jane swayed closer to him, then pulled both her and Neena into a hug. “I’m proud of you,” he murmured. “I respect you. I’m insanely jealous that you’re able to run the way you do. Neena, I’m also insanely jealous that you can make Jane make those noises.” 

Neena flicked her tongue at him. “I can teach you.”

Nathan grinned, blushing in spite of himself. “I’m proud to call you my friends,” he said softly, “and I’m proud to love you.”

“Welcome to Club Polyamory,” Neena grinned and leaned over Jane’s shoulder to kiss Nathan quickly. “We should get t-shirts.”

***

Forge eyed the rat as it stared balefully up at him. This particular rat was more stubborn than most of its breed and had only gotten worse as the techno-organic infestation had taken it over. Unlike many of the tests, this one had gone straight for the spine and worked a cap up over the skull and down over both eyes. He had a bad feeling about this.

“C’mere, you,” he muttered under his breath and reached for the rat again. It dodged to the opposite side of its cage with a chitter. “It’s for your own good,” he continued and tried again. Finally, he managed to pin the rat to the wood chips and get his fingers around it to hold it in place. “Just a prick,” he added as he slipped in the needle carrying the skin virus carrying Aliya’s regeneration codes. “There.” He pulled the needle back out and rubbed the injection site with his thumb for a second before taking his hands back to peer at his subject. “Let’s see what you can do.”

***

Nathan was stretched on his back on the roof of the X-Force compound, soaking up what sun he could catch between the shadows of the surrounding skyscrapers. He hovered right on the edge of a doze, enjoying the warmth of the late spring sun and the background hum and buzz of the city. He had gone almost a solid week now without a nightmare. 

A scarred, white rat with one blind eye snoozed in the center of his chest. Jane had named him Cecil. It literally meant blind. It was too cute to not stick, so Nathan had rolled with it.

\---

_“REALLY!? You’re gonna cut that out!”_

It’s not time yet! I’m sorry. I swear, some form of it will get back into a later chapter.

_“Mother fucker. I can’t believe you. You’re turning a slow burn into an extinguished match!”_

_“Ooh, nice usage.”_

_“Thank you.”_

This isn’t fair, guys. You can’t double team me.

_“You’re the one who put in a second Deadpool. You knew the risks.”_

Look, at least I named the rat.

_“Oh, yes, very nice. Cecil. Good name. Fuck you, Linn.”_

Okay, okay. I’ll rescue some of it, but you can’t just go straight from lock-up to kissing him, okay? It just does not flow right.

_“So I suppose it’ll be more angst until then.”_

Maybe not! Geez, give me some credit. Wade, back me up here.

_“She is a pretty good writer, I’ll give her that. And if she decides not to use that scene, she’ll write it out for herself, so you’ll still get it.”_

_“Mmmmm. Only if you promise to write it as a one-shot. Promise me.”_

I promise I will write Aliya and Nathan making out on a rooftop as a one-shot, regardless of how this story proceeds and ends.

_“Okay. It’s in the text. You can’t change it now.”_

I said I promise.

_“Mmmmph. Fine. I’ll be good.”_

I’ll believe that when I see it.

\---

Pretty much all of his downtime consisted of doing things to accommodate the rat’s apparently obsessive need to be with him. He wanted to be annoyed by it, but it was hard to be mad at something that loved him so unconditionally. Nathan ran his fingers down Cecil’s back and smiled when the rat wriggled happily.

The comm set clipped to the headrest of his lawn chair clicked twice and Domino said, “Nathan?”

“Yeah?” he mumbled back.

“You’re gonna want to see this.”

Nathan sighed and looked down at Cecil. “Can it wait, Neena? I have the rat.”

“Take him with you,” Neena shot back. “There’s someone in the office you need to see.”

“I’ll be down in a second,” Nathan grunted and turned off the comm. “So rude,” he murmured to Cecil as the rat spilled unhappily down his chest and into his hands. “I know, buddy. We’ll get a nap later.” He moved the rat up to his shoulder and felt Cecil settle in against his neck before he folded up his lawn chair and went back inside. When he got down to the main floor again, he felt better and Cecil had fallen back asleep. “So what’s so important you made me move my rat?”

“You’ve got a weird thing about that rat,” Wade commented, his mask pulled up over his nose so he could drink his coffee.

“He started it,” Nathan grinned. 

Neena put a hand on Nathan’s arm and nodded toward the glassed-in office. “Your one o’clock, Mister Summers.”

Nathan blinked and looked in. Sitting in the guest’s side of the office chairs was a young man, maybe twenty years old. From his posture in the chair, he was tall and used to trying to hide it. He had dark auburn hair cropped short and styled away from his face in one those styles that looks effortless but probably took him an hour in the mirror with hair gel and three different kinds of brushes. He was wearing a button-down shirt and looked as nervous as a kid going in for his first job interview. Nathan raised an eyebrow at Neena, who shrugged and gestured toward the office again. With a shrug of his own, Nathan walked into the office, Cecil still asleep on his shoulder. “Hi,” he said carefully. “I’m Nathan Summers. Can we help you, Mister…?”

His guest stood up and turned to face him and Nathan stared at the band of red crystal covering his eyes. “I’m Scott Summers,” he said, “and I was wondering if X-Force was hiring?”


	15. Chapter 15

“NOPE.”

“Nathan, calm down.”

“NOPE.”

“Seriously, it can’t be that--”

“NOPE.”

Jane sighed and let her hands drop to her sides as she glanced at Neena. After the half-hour interview with Scott Summers, Nathan had vanished into the sauna attached to the gym and had locked the door after him. When addressed, his only response had been a shout: “NOPE.”

“He’s not coming out on his own,” Neena observed, her hands on her hips.

“Fuck, he’ll rust.” Jane knocked on the door again. “Nathan.”

“NOPE.”

Jane rolled her eyes and crouched to examine the lock. “Give me something to use as a tension lever,” she said softly to Neena and held out her hand.

“Lucky me,” Neena chuckled as she dropped a bobby pin into Jane’s hand.

Jane grinned without looking back as she slipped the pin into place and began manipulating the inside of the lock, letting her telekinesis find the pins to move until the lock released and she could turn it. She pushed the door open and leaned into the humid, heavy air of the sauna. “Nathan.”

“NOPE.” He was naked and curled up in the fetal position, his back to the door with his hands over the back of his neck. Jane sighed and came the rest of the way inside while Neena leaned on the doorframe, watching the steam rolling out near the ceiling. When she settled next to him on the bench and put her hand on his side, Nathan whispered, “Nope.”

Jane smiled and ran her hand down his side. “We got that part, genius. It’s the why we’re still working on.”

Nathan went very still and rolled onto his back, his metallic arm drooped over his forehead. “Fucking Desna.”

“Pardon?” chuckled Jane.

“Desna,” Nathan repeated in frustration, glaring into the middle distance. “I looked her up, you know. Fictional goddess of travelers, dreams…” he trailed off for a second to look at Domino, “and luck. Her holy symbol is a butterfly, like the ones on my mug. Like the hawkrider’s butterflies.”

Confused, Domino came inside and pulled the door shut behind her. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying someone’s been fucking with me for months,” he grumbled. “I could swear I’m just spending too much time around Wade and I would believe that, but then Aliya shows up looking like my dead wife AND cracking wise the same way Wade does. And just when things are calming down from all of that, THIS?” He waved a hand angrily at the closed door. “My fucking teenaged father comes looking for a job? Someone is fucking with me and I’m tired of it.”

Jane and Neena exchanged worried looks and Neena came to sit beside Nathan’s head, stroking his hair. “So what are you going to do?”

“Nothing,” Nathan replied and rolled onto his side again, curling into a ball. “She wants something interesting from me? I’ll give her my naked ass hiding in a steam room for months.”

“She might actually like that,” Jane chuckled. “You have a nice ass.”

“SEE!?” Nathan rolled up sharply and pointed at her. “You… you sound like her.”

Jane’s eyes widened and she tilted her head away from him, leaning back. “Nathan, this is paranoid. Do you hear yourself right now? You sound as bad as Wade if not a little worse.” She reached her hands out and touched his face. “What’s going on?”

“I…” Nathan sighed and let her touch him, his eyes falling closed. Neena leaned against his back and he leaned back against her. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s just stress. It’s just too convenient, you know? Things start calming down, I feel relaxed enough to nap in the sunshine with Cecil…” He paused and looked around. “Shit, where’s Cecil? Did I leave him upstairs?”

“You had him all through the interview,” Neena said. “I haven’t seen him since.”

Nathan glared mutinously up toward the ceiling of the sauna. “Fucking… she’s trying to get me out. She knows I’ll put pants on to find him.”

Jane sighed and leaned to kiss his nose. “You’re really sounding paranoid. Besides, who would want you to put on pants?” She grinned when he glared at her. “Seriously, Nathan. Maybe you need a vacation or something. We could go to Westchester for the weekend.”

“Aliya,” he grumbled and stood up to start pacing the sauna. “Unfinished business.”

“Are you actually suggesting that you’re going to out-and-out avoid responsibility because a fictional goddess is manipulating you?” Neena stared at him, then licked her lips. “Because that really is Wade-level insane.”

He sighed and put his face in his hands for a second. “Fine. Help me find my rat, would you?”

“Of course,” Jane said and hugged his arm.

***

It took about an hour of hunting through the offices and main floor rooms to locate Cecil, looking fat and smug in the middle of the kitchen table in the midst of the remains of half a dozen donut holes. “God, he’s going to go into a diabetic coma,” sighed Nathan as he picked up the rat and peered at him. “That would just figure.” The rat licked his nose and Nathan smiled in spite of himself. He reached around to put Cecil back on his shoulder and the rat snuggled into his t-shirt, little claws hooked into the fabric and barely grazing his skin.

“What are you going to do about Scott?” Neena asked as she poured herself a glass of milk and picked up one of the half-eaten donut holes.

“Are you seriously going to eat something a rat’s been chewing on?” Jane asked, her tone distressed.

“He’s clean,” Nathan said defensively, stroking Cecil’s head. “He had a bath this morning.”

“Considering his genetics, he’s probably cleaner than we are,” Neena commented with a grin and sipped her milk. “Nathan. Scott. What do?”

“Well, I’m not fucking hiring him,” Nathan muttered and picked up one of the half-eaten donut holes. Cecil leaned toward it and Nathan rolled his eyes, offering the edge. “I am not putting my father on a team where I have to trust he’ll do what I say. That’s ten kinds of nuts.”

“He’s a good kid and he’d be useful,” Jane pointed out.

Nathan stuffed the rest of the donut hole in his mouth and huffed as he sat down at the table, his arms crossed almost sullenly across his chest. “I can’t look at that kid and see anyone but Slym, Jane. I just can’t.”

“So you’ve got daddy issues,” Neena grinned as she hung on his shoulders, “so what? So does Jane.”

“I certainly do not,” Jane snapped at her, but she was blushing when she said it.

“My point is that your personal issues aren’t a sound platform for making group decisions,” Neena continued. She stayed where she was until Nathan made a small, frustrated sound, then she kissed his cheek and collected Cecil from his shoulder. “Go talk with Wade about it. As far as I’m concerned, he’s a good prospect.”

“If I’m going to talk to Wade, I need my rat.” Nathan reached up and back. “Emotional support animal.”

“We’ll have to get him one of the little vests,” Neena snickered. Cecil ran down her fingers and onto Nathan’s arm before settling on his shoulder again.

As Nathan and Cecil vanished down the hallway, Jane slipped her arms around Neena’s waist. “ _His_  rat,” she chuckled. “He didn’t even want to take him when Forge offered.” They stood in silence for a moment, then Jane whispered, “You really think Cyclops is a good fit?”

“You don’t?”

Jane shrugged. “It seems like Nathan’s objections should be enough to veto it, I guess. He’s really young if nothing else.”

“Sam’s only 22,” Domino said. “And Scott’s been training with the X-Men for a long time.”

“That’s kind of my point.”

Domino raised her eyebrows curiously. “Oh?”

Jane nodded. “Training with the X-Men is very different from training with us. We use live ammo, for one. We’re usually not looking for prisoners. We’re looking to disable or kill whoever we’re up against. X-Force is not exactly gentle.”

“Mmm.” Neena nodded slowly. “You have a point. It was pretty strained working with Colossus, Ellie, and Yukio at first. The whole ‘no killing’ rule was hard, especially for Wade. But even Colossus got down to fight dirty eventually. You think Scott would have a problem with that?”

“From what Nathan’s said about Slym, I have absolutely no doubt he’d have a problem with it.” Jane sighed and turned Neena so she was facing her, then pulled her close to kiss her. “Not to mention he’s probably going to shit bricks when he finds out one of his team leaders is sleeping with a quarter of the team.”

“And the other one is banging Colossus,” Neena chuckled. “I hear you.” She rocked a little, then grinned quietly at Jane. “Sleeping with.”

“Well, he is,” Jane muttered with her nose pushed against Neena’s shoulder.

“You think he’s ready to up the ante?” Neena murmured softly. “We’ve only been sharing a bed for months and none of us even commented on the fact he was naked in the sauna.”

“Comments were made,” Jane said. “By him. And I commented on his butt. All pretty tame. My comments, not his butt.”

“I’m fully aware of your opinion on his butt.” Neena leaned and kissed Jane between the eyes. “I’m not the only one. He knows, too.” She paused with her lips against Jane’s eyebrow. “Are  _you_  ready to up the ante?”

Latchkey was quiet for a long time, just hugging her girlfriend and thinking. Was she? She wasn’t even sure. “I like what we have,” she admitted softly. “I know he feels differently about sex and I’m not sure if things will change if we go there.”

“What kind of changes are you afraid of?”

Jane sighed. “I’m afraid he won’t want to sleep next to us anymore. That he’ll feel awkward sharing our space if we’re having sex. I’m scared sex will distract him, I guess, too.”

“He is a man,” Neena agreed. They were both quiet for a few seconds and Neena grinned and poked Jane. “Go ahead. Spill it.”

“God, I want to do all kinds of evil things to that man,” Jane moaned softly into her shoulder.

“You know he feels the same way,” Neena murmured. Jane just mumbled inarticulately and Neena grinned. “Talk to him tonight. See what he thinks, at the very least. Okay?”

“Okay,” Jane whispered.

***

Knuckles rapped on the glass of Aliya’s cell and she looked up from the book she was reading to smile at Yukio. The younger mutant beamed at her and waved before holding up a climbing harness and rope. “Wanna go?” she asked.

“You had me at ‘whu’,” said Aliya and she put the book down on her little bed. While she was still technically under house arrest at the X-Men mansion, Wade and Yukio had negotiated for her to have some yard time to stretch her wings. Since she had been on her best behavior, Storm had even allowed her to accompany Yukio on climbing excursions unchaperoned. They had been working together on Yukio’s solo climbing techniques with Aliya has a backup anchor on the line. Aliya went to the glass and waited impatiently as Yukio tapped in the code to release her door. The second the door was open, Yukio threw her arms around Aliya’s neck in a hug and Aliya grinned, hugging her back. “Hi, Yukio.”

“Hi, Aliya.” She bounced backward a step and offered Aliya her climbing gear. “I really want to try the back wall today, if you’re up for it.”

“I think I can manage that,” Aliya smiled. Yukio had been visiting her almost twice a week since her last conversation with Wade. It was hard to dislike Yukio: she practically oozed delight. The combination of cheerful company and vitamin D-rich sunlight had significantly improved her outlook on life, even if Cable still occasionally snooped around the mansion. She followed Yukio up the stairs and out into the courtyard, stretched her wings wide with a long sigh. “Nice day.”

“It’s why I thought you might like to come out with me,” Yukio agreed. She bounced off around the mansion and Aliya shook her head with a smile. She waited until Yukio was out of sight, then stretched her wings again and took off. It felt good to fly again. She spiraled around the upper turrets of the mansion, then stooped down toward where she could see Yukio setting up. Her own shadow below her even looked like a strangely elongated falcon, her wings in a sleek M. She pulled up a bare inch from colliding with Yukio, who didn’t bat an eye. She was used to Aliya’s showy stooping habits by now. “Can you run this anchor to the top of the wall?” she asked, holding out a ring of metal connected to a peg. Before Aliya could take it from her hand, Yukio threaded a loop of rope through the eye.

Aliya caught the anchor and flew back up to the top of the wall to hammer it securely into place between two of the sturdier bricks in the masonry, then ran both ends of the line out a little so she could test the grip. She backed up and launched herself from the wall, pulling as hard as she could when she got to the end of the line and bouncing back. She repeated the test a few more times before she let herself bounce feet-first to the side of the wall. “I think we’re secure,” she called down to Yukio.

Yukio caught the line Aliya tossed to her and tied herself into the harness at her hips and waist. While she was doing that, Aliya looped the rope through the tools attached to her own belt. Yukio would be doing most of the work herself, securing anchors as she climbed and relying on the self-locking equipment attached to her harness. The secondary line, a more traditional aided climbing situation, was just in case. Then, it was up to Aliya to keep the younger woman from falling.

“On belay?” shouted Yukio.

“Belay is on,” Aliya replied, leaning into the line.

“Climbing?”

“Climb on.”

Aliya watched as Yukio found the masonry cracks with fingers and toes and began to ascend the wall. The girl was incredibly nimble and as tiny as her fingers were, she was strong. More than once, her feet slipped on a grip and left her hanging from those fingertips, only to recover and keep going. Generally, Aliya’s aid was unnecessary for these trips, since if she fell, Yukio had her own belaying catch. It just gave Aliya’s wings a workout and her lungs fresh air.

And her mind some freedom.

She always thought best when in motion and even this semi-stationary flight was more motion than sitting in a cell. As it often did when she was outside, her mind turned to this timeline’s rightful Deadpool. Wade Wilson had spoken up for her, vouched for her trustworthiness as a prisoner. Without his intervention, she was pretty sure she would still be locked up underground all the time. She was grateful but sometimes she wished she didn’t feel obligated to prove him right to his teammates. She really did want to fly away and never come back. The only thing that kept her truly tethered to the building was Wade’s promise she would be good.

Well, that and the writer’s need to progress the potentially romantic storyline between herself and Cable. But that was better off not mentioned aloud.

Movement near the front of the building caught her attention and she called to Yukio, “Pause belay.” Yukio froze, then looked out at her curiously while Aliya flew higher so she could see better. “There’s a car coming.”

“Who is it?”

Shouldn’t be doing this at work!! I know it’s slow, but find some library related reading to do.

_Wade squinted at the line of text. “That… is not Linn.”_

_Beside him, Aliya nodded. “Yup. It takes a lot for her to use one exclamation point, let alone two.” She reached up and pulled herself up to sit on the page break. “You think Linn’s in trouble?”_

_“From the tone, probably.” Wade paced underneath the text and sighed. “I think we’re lucky she didn’t lose the whole file. Her branch manager is spiteful like that.” He scratched his head through his hood and sighed again. “It’s a shame. She’s been putting out a chapter a day what with the time at the desk. This is going to slow everything down.”_

_Aliya hooked her legs over the dotted line of the page break and swung upside-down, her wings stretched over her head. “Better to be slower than to lose everything, right?”_

_“Obviously.” Wade climbed up the previous paragraphs and turned to peer out the screen. “Linn? Buddy? You okay?”_

Embarrassed as all fuck, but yeah. Where were we?

“Who is it?”

Aliya squinted, then blinked her eyes wide. “It’s Dopinder’s cab, so I think it’s safe to say it’s Wade.” She looked down at the delighted grin on Yukio’s face. “Want to go meet them?”

“Yes,” Yukio said with a tone of ‘isn’t it obvious’ in her voice. /.;’$%^RT45rt45rt45rt45rt45rtuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu680ij5yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyt7

_“Seriously!?”_

I’m sorry, the cat.

_“I’m about ready to just go on strike.”_

I’m trying my best.

_“Sure, sure.”_

Aliya grinned. “Fine. Go ahead and rappel. I’ve got you.”

With a yip, Yukio took hold of her rope and jumped free of the wall to rappel down to the ground. Aliya held her steady, then pried up the anchor and returned to her. Yukio was already out of her harness and busy packing everything up neatly and Aliya handed her the anchor. “You and Wade would make a cute couple,” she said offhandedly and Aliya tried not to choke on her own startled inhale.

“What the fuck?” she asked.

“You would,” Yukio chirped cheerfully.

“Wade is very much not my type,” Aliya chuckled and shook her head.

“Who is your type?” Yukio asked and leaned against Aliya’s shoulder with a sly grin. “Do you like skinny and shy? Or big and dumb?”

Aliya snorted. “I prefer them smart and respectful.”

“Oh, so Beast.”

Aliya glared and Yukio grinned brightly. “No, not Beast.”

“Am I at least in the right gender category?”

“I’m pansexual, Yukio.” Aliya fluffed her wings irritably and settled them again. “Most Deadpools are.”

“Smart and respectful,” Yukio murmured and danced around Aliya as they walked. “Hmm. Colossus is respectful, but I don’t think you could call him smart. Ellie is smart but not respectful. While I’m both smart and respectful, neither are my primary characteristics.”

“Wade really did pin the tail on the Pinkie Pie with you, didn’t he?”

Yukio just giggled.


	16. Chapter 16

 

**A/N: Warnings for serious (and I do mean SERIOUS) angst, mentions of character death and rats. Well, the rats aren’t a serious warning, but the rest of it is.**

  


[Originally posted by peculiar-monstar](http://tmblr.co/Z9GVrh2YCzHB3)

 

When Nathan located Wade, Deadpool was hauling an overstuffed suitcase toward Dopinder’s taxi, whistling something that sounded like it might have originally been “Gimme All Your Loving” by ZZ Top. Nathan paused to watch his progress as he reached to settle Cecil on his shoulder again. With a very strained, sustained note, Wade kicked the partially open truck wide and swung his suitcase inside. “Okay, Dopinder!” he yelled. “We’re all in, buddy!”

“Where do you think you’re going?” Nathan asked in mild amusement.

Deadpool looked up and said, “Booty call. You’re welcome to share the cab if you want.”

“I do not mind,” chirped Dopinder with a little wave.

“I am not driving to Westchester with you,” Nathan informed him. “I do want to talk to you about the interview with Cyclops yesterday.”

“Oh, yeah. Daddy issues, much?”

Cable took a long, slow breath in, then exhaled again. “The next person to suggest that I have developmental, Freudian issues with my nineteen-year-old father who won’t be my father for another two millennia--give or take a decade--is going to get shot.”

“So serious,” Deadpool said with a sigh. “I thought you had lightened up. Or has the tone shifted too far from the first few chapters?”

 

Shut up, Wade.  
 _“You know you love me.”_  
I do. I really do. But sometimes I love Trevor more.  
 _“J’accuse!”_

 

Cable paused to glare at Wade suspiciously. “Who were you just talking to?”

“Huh?” Wade stared at him. “Nobody. Are you feeling okay?”

“I’m fine.” He shook his head to clear it and sighed. “I need a serious, team-mindful answer on what to do about Scott, okay? Domino and Latchkey both think he’d be useful. I have reservations, mostly due to his age and experience level.”

“We hired Sam,” Wade said with a shrug. “He’s only 21.”

“22,” Cable corrected, “and he trained with the ROTC for a while in school.”

“12 months is not that big a difference,” snorted Wade and Cable waved a hand to dismiss the issue. “If you want to take the training angle, Scott’s been training with the X-Men for how long?”

Nathan shook his head. “Very different hierarchy.”

“And we operate JUST like the ROTC.” 

“My point is, I don’t think I can trust him to obey orders.”

Wade snorted. “And you trust me?”

“I trust you to  _give_  orders.”

Wade and Nathan stood and stared at each other for a moment. Nathan was surprised to realize that it was true. Wade was surprised to realize that Nathan’s trust wasn’t unfounded. “Let’s try him on a probationary period,” Wade offered. “Take him out for a few runs, see how he works with the team. If he doesn’t work, we send him home.” 

Nathan sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. “I really don’t like this, Wade. I’ve just got a bad feeling about it.” He jumped a little, then reached back to scratch Cecil’s head when the rat nibbled on his ear.

“If Neena had the same feeling, I’d be on board,” Wade said with a shrug. “Your luck is pretty normal, though.” When Nathan didn’t answer, he gripped the other man’s shoulder and shook him a little. “I swear, it’ll be okay. Mostly because someone has to say that to foreshadow that it won’t.”

“You’re just saying that so I won’t worry and when something does go wrong I can blame you,” snorted Nathan. 

Wade blinked. “I… am, actually. Are you sure you’re feeling okay.”

Nathan smiled ironically. “Feeling sort of touched by a butterfly, honestly.”

“Show me on the doll--”

“Go answer your booty call already,” Nathan laughed and swiped at Wade’s head. “If you see Forge, tell him Cecil’s fine.”

“I will.” Deadpool turned away and started to climb into the taxi, then paused to look back. “I’ll say hi to Aliya for you, too.”

“Don’t.” Nathan gave him a firm glare. “There’s no need to torture her.”

“I was more hoping to torture you,” Wade admitted with a grin.

Nathan shook his head. “Mostly I just feel bad for her. She really isn’t Hope and that makes it easier to just see her as a person instead of a ghost.” He crossed his arms over his chest and sighed. “If you visit with her, leave me out of it. I genuinely don’t want to hurt her.”

Thoughtfully, Wade nodded. “Okay. Well, I’ll see you later.” He got the rest of the way into the taxi and yelled, “High ho, Dopinder! Away!”

Nathan watched as the car pulled away from the curb and worked its way into traffic. Cecil snuggled against his neck and Nathan sighed, reaching up to scratch him along the neck. “I just don’t get it,” he muttered to the rat. “Something is going on and I don’t know what it is. I mean, I do. But saying Desna’s to blame is just… crazy.”

_I’m not Desna. I just really like luck goddesses._

Nathan spun around and then backed up against the building, his eyes wide. “Yup. I’m losing it. I’m done.” He clapped one hand securely over Cecil’s back and sprinted back into the compound to lock the door behind him.

***

Yukio and Aliya ended up being the welcoming committee in the courtyard when Dopinder’s cab rolled to a stop just inside the gates. Aliya perched on the crenelation while Yukio waved enthusiastically. “Hi, Wade!” she shouted when the door opened.

“Hi, Yukio!” Wade yelled back. “Hi, me!”

“I can still hurt you.” Aliya fluffed her wings, then pulled one forward to smooth the feathers through her fingers. 

Wade came to stand below her, his hands on his hips and his head thrown back to squint up at her. “You’re looking good. It’s nice to see you out.”

Aliya kept grooming her wing without looking at him, then sighed. “It’s nice to be out,” she admitted. “Thank you for your part in that.”

“We chronic deathers have to stick together.”

Aliya froze, her feathers still between her fingers. She slowly turned to look down at Wade and asked in a flat voice, “What.”

“You heard me.” Wade crossed his arms and leaned back on his heels. “I know I didn’t stutter.”

“I am not dying.” Aliya fluffed her wings out again and started preening the other wing. “Other than in the existential ‘we’re all dying’ kind of way.”

Yukio was watching them talk like a spectator at a tennis match and Wade sighed. “I don’t think you want this discussed in the open, do you?”

Aliya glared at him. “You’ve lost what marbles you’ve got left, Wade. I’m fine.”

When they remained locked where they were, Yukio cleared her throat delicately and asked, “Wade, would you like to come in and have some tea or something? I think Aliya’s allowed out as long as I’m with her.”

“That would be nice, Yukio, thank you.” Wade glanced back up and Aliya refused to meet his gaze. “Featherbrain.”

“Avocado face.”

Yukio held the door for Wade, then called back toward the cab, “You can come too, Dopinder. There’s lots of tea.” The cab driver popped out of the car and rushed to follow them inside. After a few seconds of silence, she added, “Aliya. Please come inside.” Reluctantly, the winged mutant dropped to the courtyard and followed Yukio back into the building.

Aliya followed the others at a few steps’ distance and would have allowed herself to fall further behind if Yukio hadn’t continually prodded her forward. Very seldom did they have to confront the nature of their relationship which, while still friendly, was still based on Yukio’s supervision of Aliya. Wade dropped into a chair in a library and Yukio motioned for Aliya to join him. “I’ll get the tea,” she said quietly and half-dragged Dopinder away with her.

“What the fuck are you going on about?” Aliya snapped when the door was closed. “I’m not sick.”

Wade crossed one leg over the other, then pulled his mask up to his forehead. “You, my dear Deadpool, are in constant pain. It wears on your mind, eats at everything you do. The only reason you continue to wake up every morning is because you force yourself to. You are keeping yourself alive through sheer force of will in a way no one else really understands.” Aliya turned away with an angry sound and Wade smiled. “When Nathan was alive, you kept waking up for him. For your kids. Now, all of that is gone and you wonder why you bother anymore.”

“Fuck off, Wade,” she whispered without looking at him.

“Are you waking up for Yukio?” he continued. “For Fugue? Marrow? Or are you holding onto the hope that you’re waking up for Cable?”

“Fuck OFF, Wade!” Aliya crossed the room with her arm cocked for a punch that Wade easily deflected. “I’m not dying. I’m not waking up for anyone else. I’m sure as hell not holding out hope for him.”

Wade caught both of her wrists and pinned her arms to her sides. She struggled, but he kept talking quietly. “The self-destructive know their own, Aliya. I know there’s a reason you don’t go by Hope. You haven’t felt like there’s hope in a long, long time, have you? You lost Hope long before Nathan died.” When she stopped struggled suddenly with a gasp, Wade pulled her into a hug that she returned immediately. “What was it?” he asked softly. “What happened?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she whispered back. “It doesn’t happen now. I changed it.”

“But it still happened to you. It’s still hurting you.” He grinned against her shoulder and gave her a little squeeze. “And don’t tell me it’s an old hurt. I still consider this first aid. I’m getting good at arguing with time travelers.”

Aliya choked softly and hugged him harder. “I hate having a fucking tragic backstory, Wade. I hate it.”

“We’ve all got a tragic backstory,” he murmured. “It’s why we’re interesting. And it tends to keep us fighting for each other, too. Tell me.”

With a long, trembling sigh, Aliya put her head down on his shoulder and started to talk.

***

_“I met Nathan Dayspring for the first time when he was about eleven and I was six. I don’t think he remembered me when he found me and the rest of my team in that foxhole years later, but I knew him when I saw him. It’s hard to miss that kind of techno-organic infection. When I met him, he’d only lost his shoulder and upper arm but it was like his mind was already gone. He was crazy angry all the time. Scared the shit out of me. When I saw him standing over my foxhole, all I could think about was that anger. It’s why J’tue kept shooting at him for so long. I did stop her and I did say he looked better with his head on his shoulders. But I was still scared of that anger._

_“Once he got us safely back to their camp, I realized he wasn’t that angry little child anymore. He’d grown up, gotten some control of his infection and his temper. He loved with the same kind of ferocity, though. I loved him, too. Just as fiercely. When Tyler was born, I thought his face was going to split from smiling. When Vaughn was born, it was the same but I knew he was hoping for a girl. It’s why I got so excited when I figured out I was pregnant again. I really had a good feeling about this one and… yeah, I was right. We named her Emily and I swear Nathan didn’t blink for two days after she was born. Like he was afraid she’d vanish if he did._

_“Emily was two when the treaties started to break down and the fighting picked up again. I wanted to go back out there but Nathan refused. He said one of us had to stay with the kids. I told him to shove his head up his ass and stay himself if he thought so. We fought about it a lot. More than we’d ever really fought about anything. He was getting angrier again, but I didn’t notice it at the time. It was another of those fights or a continuation of the same fight when we were out with the kids and he really lost it. Lost it like I had never seen before. He blew up and screamed at me about how he just wanted to make sure we were safe but his face didn’t say he wanted me safe. He wanted me compliant or dead. It was the first time I was ever afraid of him since we were kids._

_“The thing is… was… I loved him. He was the father of my kids, the man who had rescued me a million times from everything from killer robots to boredom. I couldn’t be afraid of him. Not really. I waited too long to confront him about it. I didn’t see what was happening until the infection had spread across his tailbone and started to infect his other leg. It had already burrowed deep into his brain by that point and nobody saw it coming. By the time I finally said something, it was way too late._

_“We were playing with the kids. Rock climbing, actually. I had Emily in a carrier on my back and was watching the line for Tyler. Nathan was teaching Vaughn bouldering techniques closer to the ground. I just remember hearing Vaughn scream and then there was this sound… like tearing fabric and the scream just cut off. Gone. I couldn’t go anywhere, I had Tyler on a line. I couldn’t let him fall, so I screamed for Nathan. I figured something had happened when he had turned away or something. Once I got Tyler back on the ground, we both ran over and… Nathan was just staring at his hands.”_

***

Aliya stopped talking, her head down and her eyes closed. Wade squeezed her shoulder gently. They had moved to one of the sofas in the library and were sitting knee-to-knee. “He had torn him in half,” she whispered. “With his bare hands. Just… I don’t know what happened. I don’t even want to know. I took Tyler and Emily and we went to Ivory’s. I couldn’t even look at him.” She took a second and swallowed, then looked at Wade with a weak smile. “What happened to that tea?”

“I think the tea-bearer was nice enough to actually not eavesdrop,” Wade smiled back.

Aliya nodded. “The rages started right after that. Nobody could get close enough to bring him down. He attacked everyone, friend and foe. It only took a week or so for the infection to completely overrun him once he stopped fighting it.”

“But you stopped him,” Wade said.

“I did.” Aliya tried to smile but her lip started to tremble and she wiped at her eyes with the heel of her hand. “He came to Ivory’s. Middle of the night. He’d made me promise years ago that if it ever got out of control, I’d be the one to stop him. I would end him. He must have still been in there enough to remember that because he came to the lawn and dropped. When I came outside, I called his name and he looked up at me. He still had his right eye but only barely. Most of his face was this… mask of metal and circuits. He looked at me out of that one barely human eye and he said, ‘I still have Hope.’ I cut his head off.” She stumbled to a stop and took another shaking breath. “I killed the man I love, Wade. And I killed the monster that killed him, that killed our son. But I still killed him.”

Wade sighed and pulled her back into a hug while she struggled with tears. “More tragic a backstory than most,” he murmured. “So you went back?”

She nodded again. “I stole a time-slip, went back to that first fight in the park. I went back and I told him that he was being irrational. I told him he wasn’t himself. He stopped and looked at me and touched the back of his neck. Just in that little fight, the infection had spread a good three inches across the back of his neck. It scared him enough that he didn’t ignore it.” She leaned against Wade with a long sigh. “I couldn’t stay there. If I did, I would have caused all kinds of wrinkles and waves, not to mention displacing the then-me. So I slipped further back and I just kept going. I couldn’t go back to my own time. I just… couldn’t.”

“What about Tyler and Emily?”

“Ivory promised to take care of them when I told her my plan.” Aliya smiled weakly. “Emily probably won’t remember me or her father and I think that’s probably for the best. Tyler, though… I’m glad I fixed what happened so he doesn’t have to remember seeing his little brother like that.” Wade opened his mouth and she reached up to cover it firmly with her hand. “I don’t want to hear about the reality that spun off from my changing history. I don’t want to hear about how there’s a version of reality where I abandoned my children after they were traumatized by the death of their brother and father. I can’t go back.”

“Any more than Nathan wants to hear that there’s a version of reality where we failed to stop Russell and his wife and son still die.” Wade hugged her and rocked slowly. “I know. I’m sorry. I don’t make the rules, I just remind everyone obnoxiously that they exist.”

“But none of this means I’m dying,” Aliya pointed out as she pushed herself back into a sitting position. “All exposition aside, I’m not doing what you’re doing or what Nathan’s doing. I’m not holding back some kind of lethal condition.”

Wade smiled, reached to put a hand behind her neck and pulled until she let her forehead rest against his. “Baby, we’re all dying. Some of us just want to get there a little quicker than others.” Aliya scrunched her eyes closed. “Deadpools don’t give up,” he whispered. “We don’t go down without a fight and half of that fight is making fun of the world as we go down. Stay with us, Hope. Stay and be a Deadpool.”

“You’re a fucking bastard, Wade Wilson,” she whispered back and hugged him around the neck. “Fuck you. Fuck you straight to hell and back.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Of course it’s a fucking yes.”

Wade grinned. “Great! Let’s go tell Charlie that I’m taking home a prisoner on a permanent transfer.” He hugged her and sighed. “You’re one of the good ones. I hope you know that. And not just one of the pretty ones.”

“I’ve seen your fucking face,” Aliya snorted. “I know what I am.”


	17. Chapter 17

 

A/N: Warnings for rather spectacularly blowing up the fourth wall.

  


[Originally posted by softtroublemaker](http://tmblr.co/ZJhl5f2KCkGxY)

 

Jane and Neena found one of the unoccupied offices strewn with loose papers, textbooks, and assorted folders, files, and ephemera of a term project. At the far end of the conference table, Sam’s shock of blond hair stuck up over the edge of his laptop. He seemed to be utterly engrossed in whatever he was working on and Neena raised an eyebrow at Jane, curious.

“I think he’s studying,” Jane said with a little nod.

“Oh, ha ha,” snorted Neena. “I can see he’s studying, Jane. But what? And why?”

“Instances and progression of lung cancer in coal miners,” replied Sam without looking up. “I’m workin’ on my personal essay for NYU.”

“You going back to school?” Neena asked him in surprise. She came over to sit on the arm of his chair and ruffled his hair. “You gonna be all fancified and edumacated now?”

“I have a bachelors in science,” Jane commented wryly, “and Nathan has a law degree.”

“And Deadpool snorts massive amounts of cocaine and kills off all his brain cells on a regular basis since he knows he can grow them all back without long-term damage,” said Neena. “What’s your point?”

* * *

 

“Guys,” sighed Sam, “I really am tryin’ to focus. Do you mind?”

“How long since you ate?” asked Jane.

Sam blinked and counted briefly on his fingers. “I had breakfast yesterday for sure. What day is it?”

“Up,” Jane and Neena chorused. Neena grabbed him under one arm and Jane took the other. “C’mon,” Jane added. “I’ll even pay.”

“You have a BS?” Neena murmured as they dragged Sam away from his desk, his expression and body language limp in surrender. “I didn’t know that.”

“Robotics,” grinned Jane. “Small-scale engineering and robotics. I was a STEM geek all through school before STEM was even a thing.” 

“And when did Cable get a law degree?”

“It’s kind of out of date now.” They all looked up as Nathan joined them in the hallway, Cecil still surfing his shoulder. “Or… well, I guess it’s still out of date, just from too far forward. There was a tiny window between when Slym and Redd were still raising me and when I joined the mercenaries. I went to school then.”

“There were laws to study?” Jane asked, amused and Nathan stuck his tongue out at her.

“Yes. They were mostly a poli-sci exercise in a vacuum, though. Most laws were decided on and enforced by the Sentinels and their creators, so it’s not like I would have gotten to argue the point in court.” He looked down at Sam where he was still being dragged by the two women. “Are we going somewhere?”

“Food,” said Sam in a despondent voice.

“The most important meal of the day,” Nathan said with a sage nod. “Where?”

“Haven’t decided yet,” Neena said. “Maybe taquitos?”

“I love the little tacos,” purred Jane and Nathan snorted.

Once they reached the door, Sam insisted on walking under his own power and the four of them walked out into the muggy early evening of Manhattan in June. The streets were about as crowded as usual, nothing out of the ordinary and moving at the speed they were all used to. Without conferring, they all dropped down into the subway and collected on the platform to wait for the train. “I take it we’re all thinking of the same taquitos,” chuckled Neena. 

“There can be only one,” intoned Jane.

“Good grief, who needs Wade when we have you,” Nathan chuckled and looped one arm around her to pull her closer. “That’s what, two pop culture references in under 100 words?”

Jane tilted her head to look at him curiously. “You’re still sounding off, Nathan. Are you sure you’re doing alright?”

“Well,” he sighed, “I’m hearing the narrator’s voice, feeling conscious of the word count of the chapter, and getting the distinct sense that I’m a character in a work of fiction. So I suppose I’m not doing alright. Do we know if Wade is contagious?”

“The cancer or…?”

“No, just Wade. Does his Wade-ness rub off? Contact poison or inhalant?”

“I dunno, but his farts should be an environmental hazard. We could get hazard pay.” Jane grinned up at him and Nathan shook his head with a smile. 

“You’re not getting paid extra for smelling Wade’s farts.”

“What if it causes cancer?” gasped Jane. “Or spreads Deadpool syndrome or something.”

“Deadpool syndrome,” Nathan chuckled. “I like that. I’m calling hearing voices narrating my actions ‘Deadpool syndrome’ from now on.”

Their train ground to a halt and they all climbed on, settling into the spaces left by previous exiting passengers. Jane snuggled with her back against Nathan’s chest and he looped one arm around her and the other around one of the metal supports. “Wanna get some one-on-one tonight?” Jane murmured, pitching her voice so it only reached Nathan.

He blinked and glanced down at the top of her head. “We talking triage and walking back some infection? Or…”

Jane grinned, leaned her head against his chest and looked back up at him. “We’re not talking triage, big boy.”

Nathan’s face flamed red. “You ask me this here?” he mumbled. “On a crowded train in the middle of Manhattan?”

“Figured I’d give you some time to think about it.” Jane wriggled a little and pressed back against him, then rotated her hips just enough to push her ass against his fly. “You don’t have to answer now.” She caught her breath when the hand at her waist flattened against her belly and pulled her back a little tighter. “Or you can. You can answer whenever you want.”

“I will.” Nathan’s voice hissed against her ear and she shivered. “I will answer whenever I feel like it.” His lips grazed her neck and Jane bit her lip against a happy whimper. “Exhibitionist.” 

“Guilty as charged,” she murmured back. “You don’t seem to mind, either.”

“Maybe not.” He teased her ear with his teeth, then stood up straighter. “Maybe a little.”

“Doesn’t feel little to me,” she giggled.

“Shush, you.” The train rocked under them and Nathan grinned, hugging her close. “Unless you like spankings.” Jane shot him a look somewhere between hungry and anguished and his grin widened. “I’ll take that as a yes.” Jane just nodded mutely and Nathan slipped his finger under her chin, tipped her head back and kissed her. “Then… yeah, one-on-one sounds like a great idea. How’s Neena with it?”

“She suggested it,” Jane smiled. 

“Really.”

Jane nodded and leaned in for another kiss, which Nathan gave her willingly. “Been thinking about it for a while. I’ve just been kinda scared it would change something with us. I like us.”

“I like us, too,” Nathan murmured. “I’d hate to mess anything up with you two or with all three of us.” He ran his fingers over her hair and watched her close her eyes happily with a smile of his own. “It’s why I haven’t been pushing. At least, I hope I haven’t been pushing.”

“You haven’t been pushing,” Jane assured him. The train squealed and ground to a halt at their stop and they all shuffled off. Jane and Nathan’s fingers automatically found each other and wound together. Neena met Jane’s gaze and raised her eyebrows, then grinned when Jane blushed.

They found their favorite taquito vendor in his usual haunt, ordered and collected their food amid the bustling foot traffic around Rockefeller Center. Overlooking the skating rink, they settled along the rail to eat. Nathan glanced down the line of faces, Jane pressed up against his right shoulder and Neena beside her, Sam bringing up the end with a taquito halfway stuffed in his mouth and hanging out. It felt good to be part of a group. He leaned down and kissed Jane’s shoulder, smiled when she looked back at him. “Feels good to be home,” he whispered and she beamed.

***

_“So, can I talk to you?”_

...Sure. If you want to.

_“I’m… really confused.”_

This does not surprise me. You don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to.

_“Is this just… blank space here, then? When does this happen?”_

This conversation happens in real time. Specifically, it’s 4:45 pm on June 14, 2018. If we don’t finish it by the time I leave work, then it’ll probably take place in a half-capacity while I’m driving home, then continue more formally when I start typing again after dinner.

_“I really don’t understand.”_

You’re seeing what Wade sees, Nathan. You don’t have to look. In general, things go more smoothly if you don’t. That said, I enjoy having self-aware characters. Wade, Aliya, and Trevor Philips are like friends I can text without getting in trouble.

_“Trevor Philips?”_

You don’t know him. If you stay on your side of the page, you won’t meet him. Wade and Aliya know him only because they poke around my head when I’m not writing.

_“Do you mind if I stick around?”_

Not a bit. If it hurts your head, just forget about it and go back into the story. Like I said, you don’t have to stay. 

_“...what do I call you? If you’re not Desna?”_

My name is Linn, Nathan. 

_“...did you just kiss the top of my head?”_

Sort of. C’mon, we’ll talk in the car.

***

Yukio tapped on the door of the library. “Wade?” A soft, mumbled sound answered her and she glanced back at Dopinder, who shrugged. Yukio shrugged back and pushed the door open. They saw Wade folded onto a loveseat easily two feet too short for him with Aliya snuggled next to him, her head on his chest and her wings relaxed behind her. “Are you okay?” Yukio asked. 

Wade lifted his finger to his lips, then gave her a thumbs up. “Could you tell Piotr I’m a little tied up and I’ll catch up with him later?” he whispered. Yukio grinned and nodded, so Wade wrapped his arms back around Aliya and settled back in. They slipped back into the hall and he smiled to himself, closing his eyes. “They’re gone,” he murmured.

“Did you actually come on a booty call?” Aliya mumbled into his suit shoulder. 

“Yeah,” Wade grinned. “Just can’t get enough of the Pool.”

Aliya chuckled. “I’m glad you’re together,” she said softly. “It’s nice to see a Deadpool who’s actually happy.”

“Plenty of us are happy,” Wade said, stroking the back of her head. “You can be, too, you know. I’d really like to see you happy, actually.” 

“Naw, I’m more fun prickly and miserable.” Aliya snuggled into his shoulder and fluffed her wings up. “I don’t even know what would make me happy anymore. I haven’t been happy for years.”

They lay in silence for a moment and Wade squeezed her shoulders. “I do.”

“Liar,” she whispered. 

“Yeah,” he sighed. “But I think a good fucking would help.”

“Sex does not solve everything.”

“But it helps.” 

Aliya snorted and glared at him. “Not always.”

Wade shrugged and nodded. “Yeah. Not always. So what are you going to do? Join X-Force and be the bitchy peanut gallery sitting in the shadows?”

“Basement ‘Pool to your Ceiling ‘Pool,” she grinned. 

“Because I’m just so very Ceiling Cat.”

Aliya propped her chin on his chest. “Do you think the others would vote in a former Morlock?”

“I think if you asked and I vouched for you, Nathan would agree and he’s really the only one I need approval from before I hire someone. It’d be better to have everyone on board, but we’re co-leaders.” Wade tilted his head. “I think we’d be the first team to have two Deadpools working long-term. Usually, it’s just a short crossover issue.”

“Is there adoption paperwork you need to sign?” Aliya grinned. “A contract that states you won’t let me outside unsupervised and if for any reason you can’t keep me, you’ll bring me back to Xavier?”

“I think it’s just a standard spay/neuter and no declawing contract.”

“Which you won’t sign.”

“Hell, no!” Wade grinned. “I’m getting you declawed the second we’re out of here.”

Aliya batted her hand against the side of his head but grinned back at him before rolling up off the loveseat. “Honestly, I’d kind of like to get going. If I stay here much longer, someone’s going to find a reason to lock me up again.”

Wade stood up next to her. “Are you stopping back downstairs to say goodbye?”

Aliya was quiet for a long time, hugging her arms around her middle. “I don’t think so,” she said softly. “Sarah will just curse me out and Fugue will cry. He’ll cry anyway, but this way I don’t have to see him.”

“Maybe Charlie will give me a twofer,” Wade said and squeezed her shoulder. “Adopt one bitchy Morlock, get a weepy one for free.”

“You’re serious?” Aliya looked at him with wide eyes, her wings fluffing hopefully. “Fugue doesn’t belong in a cage, Wade. He’s smart enough to know what he’s missing, he gets bored as fuck and when he’s bored, he gets depressed. He needs sunlight and internet access.”

“And a boyfriend.”

“That, too.”

Wade grinned and rolled his head toward the door to the library. “C’mon, then. Let’s go make a case for adoption.”

***

She listened as they came. They came and took Fugue. Took him with no trouble, no trouble at all. Like they had taken her Deadpool. Like they had taken her freedom. No trouble, no trouble at all. 

Marrow pressed herself against the glass of her cell, listening. When they had gone, she hissed, “Aliya. Where are my eyes and ears?” Silence answered her and Marrow closed her eyes in despair. They had taken her Deadpool and had not returned her this time. Perhaps they were taking Fugue to never return him as well. She wondered if they lived when they were taken. 

Frustration surged and she broke blades from her shoulders to run them down the glass in a scream louder than anything she could have produced with her voice. As sharp as her bone blades were, they could not cut glass. Not even score it. Sarah repeated the dragging scream of the blade on the glass, then again. 

“That’s enough, Sarah.” 

The hated voice elicited a hiss from her and Marrow crouched, her blades raised. She could feel fresh ones growing larger along her spine, instinctive armor reacting to her emotional state. “I will be trouble,” she announced. “I will be all the trouble.”

Ororo sighed and crossed her arms over her chest. “You have always been all the trouble, Sarah. It would not hurt you to try being less troublesome.” She flinched back when Sarah spit at the glass. “Child, you are needlessly quarrelsome. Why must you be like this?”

“I am all the trouble,” Marrow hissed and scraped her blades down the glass again without breaking eye contact with Storm.

“Yes,” Storm sighed sadly as she turned away. “I suppose you are.”


	18. Chapter 18

Jean Grey watched as Scott finished packing his things and started wheeling the suitcases out to the waiting taxi. “I just have a really bad feeling about this, Scott.”

“It will be fine,” Scott sighed, clearly tired of having the same conversation over and over. “I just need to get out on my own for a while. Stretch out. I feel like I’ve been squished into too small a room for the last two years, Jean, you know that. This opportunity with X-Force is perfect.”

“But Cable--”

“Is going to be my boss and I’m fine with that. I respect him. He’s a good fighter and he seems like a good leader.” Scott paused to examine the cases packed into the trunk of the taxi, turned one forty-five degrees and shoved it deeper inside. “Deadpool, on the other hand…”

“It’s not Deadpool I’m worried about.”

Scott sighed and turned to face her, leaning against the open trunk. “What is it going to take for you to let this go, Jean? It’s just a job, one that involves using what I’m good at to help people.”

Jean chewed her lip, her arms crossed tightly across her chest and her eyes fixed somewhere around the middle of his stomach. “I just… have a bad feeling. That’s all. I feel like you should be here working with Storm and Beast.”

“Is this just because of Cable?” Scott asked her and pulled her into a hug. “I really don’t get why he bothers you so much, Jean. He’s a good guy.”

“I’m not saying he’s not,” Jean protested softly. “He just makes me nervous. I make him nervous, too, have you noticed? He’s practically twitchy when I’m around.” When Scott sighed again, she pushed her face into his chest. “And nobody will give us a straight answer about him and how he might be related to you. They just say he’s from the future and what does that even mean? Why didn’t he go back? Why is he still here? How far in the future are we talking about here? His tech is really advanced, but does that mean ten years or a hundred?”

Scott hugged her and stroked her hair. “Maybe he’ll tell me if I ask nicely.”

“You really don’t see the resemblance, do you?” she asked and Scott shook his head. “It’s creepy. The only way I know it isn’t you talking if I’m not looking at him is how quiet he is. He looks like you around the mouth and jaw, too. I think he’d have your smile if he ever smiled.”

“Summers really isn’t that uncommon a last name,” Scott replied, swaying with her. “Maybe he’s a distant cousin.” When Jean didn’t answer, he propped his chin on top of her head and sighed. “At least he doesn’t have my eyes.”

“Eye,” Jean mumbled into his chest.

“Ha ha,” Scott replied in an ironic tone.

“No, I mean he’s only got one,” Jean clarified without looking up. “The other one’s artificial.”

“I wonder how that happened,” Scott murmured. “Artificial eye, arm, leg. You think he did it on purpose?”

“No,” Jean replied immediately. “It’s some kind of infection. It’s why he’s here so often to see Forge and Beast. They’re trying to keep it from spreading. I heard them talking about it in the hallway once.”

“Eavesdropping on the teachers again?” Scott teased and Jean poked him in the ribs. “At least you’re using your ears this time instead of your brain.”

“Not funny,” Jean grumbled and Scott kissed her forehead.

“Sorry.”

“I am ready to go whenever you are, Mr. Summers,” Dopinder called from the front seat and the couple jumped at his voice.

“Forgot he was there,” Scott mumbled.

“Me, too.” Jean paused and added, “So, are you paying him for this or…?”

“I think I’m paying him?” Scott replied and glanced over his shoulder at Dopinder, who waved in the rearview mirror. “He’s cheerful like someone getting paid, anyway.”

“I think that’s just Dopinder.” Jean stood on her toes to kiss him and watched as Scott climbed into the backseat of the taxi.

When his girlfriend was vanishing around the corner, Scott relaxed and slouched in his seat with a sigh. “Do you have a girlfriend, Dopinder?” he asked. The driver was silent for a long time and Scott wondered if it was a sore subject.

“Not so much, Mr. Summers.”

“You’re lucky.”

“It’s more that I have the love of my life kidnapped and held at an undisclosed location after I murdered her lover who was also my cousin.”

Silence stretched in the taxi.

Dopinder turned on the radio.

***

Aliya crouched on the roof of the X-Force compound. It was a sunny day and she just enjoyed the warmth of the sun on her dark feathers. She was very aware that, from a distance and at the right angle, she looked like the world’s largest crow perched on the edge of the building.

Nathan’s lawn chair sat open nearby. He had been sunning himself there earlier that morning and was just going down when Aliya landed. He offered her the chair and smiled when he left. Anyone else and she might have taken a nap in the chair, but she couldn’t bring herself to sit where he had been. Especially when she would need to lie on her stomach to let her wings stretch. She was still unnerved by being around him and now that she was free to move as she wished, that discomfort had only increased.

She didn’t want him. She kept saying it to herself.

She wanted her Nathan and her Nathan was dead.

This Nathan had relaxed so much since her first impression of him. He smiled more and it was her Nathan’s smile. She hid and watched him interact with his team and listened to the ups and downs of his voice. In so many ways, he was her Nathan. They came from the same root and branch. She knew he felt the same way because there was something haunted in his eyes when he looked at her. They were the same people they had always been, only shaped by losing each other.

Angry, she pushed off from the roof and flew away. Almost immediately, the bracelet on her wrist started to buzz to remind her that she was outside her perimeter. She was only allowed to move outside a three-block radius of the compound in the company of at least one other member of X-Force other than Fugue, who had the same restrictions. If she stayed out of bounds for longer than ten minutes, an alarm at the compound would sound and the team would have to go out and retrieve her. “Fucking house arrest,” she muttered under her breath and banked her glide toward the compound. She scared the shit out of some pigeons and half a dozen commuters then settled on a building two blocks away.

“Aliya.” The comm unit on her lapel crackled briefly and Aliya glared at it. When Wade had decided to stop making crackling noises with his throat, she grunted acknowledgment. “Are you coming back in soon? Sam and Fugue want to have a big meal ready for Scott when he gets here. I think they’ll be here in a narratively convenient period of time.”

“Yeah, fine,” Aliya sighed. “How adorable are those two in the kitchen?”

“You should see it,” Wade grinned. “Fugue’s in a full-body hair net but he’s whistling. Did you know he could whistle?”

Aliya smiled in spite of herself. “No, I didn’t. I’ll be down soon.”

“Sure thing.”

“Wade?”

There was a pause and he said, “Yeah?”

“Where’s Cable?”

“In his quarters, I think. Do you want me to check?”

“No, that’s okay.” Aliya fluffed out her feathers and sighed, settling them again. “Thanks.”

“See you soon.”

***

“Lab notes, Friday, July 27th. All current W-series subjects show no further external development. WA-series 1 and 2 show no further external development. WA-series 3 subjects 1 through 8 show no further external development. Subject 9’s facial mask has advanced five millimeters, integrating the lower jaw and the beginning of the upper sinuses. 9’s jaw has become rigid and he’s not eating or drinking anymore. Posit subject death in 48 hours. Subject 10’s facial mask has advanced 2 millimeters forward and five millimeters aft. The aft development has integrated the shoulder-blades and upper spine. The shoulders appear to be changing the shape of the forelimbs. Not sure how yet, but it’s obvious that Aliya’s regen isn’t enough to support Wade’s with this strain of the T-O. A-series 1 subjects 1 through 5 confirmed deceased this morning and the T-O has gone dormant. Subjects 6 and 7 confirmed deceased this morning, though still ambulatory under the T-O’s influence. Subject 8 hasn’t eaten in 72 hours but still retains a pulse and respiration. Subject 9 confirmed deceased this morning and ambulatory. Subject 10 confirmed deceased and dormant.”

Forge sighed and put his forehead in his hand. “Personal footnote. I don’t even know why I’m doing this Aliya series for Nathan. Her regen isn’t enough to even support Wade’s. There’s no way it’s going to fight back enough on its own. I’m worried about that WA strain of T-O, too. It’s getting more aggressive and I swear it’s getting smarter about infection. I had to double my security measures on the cages. They were starting to pick the locks. The digital locks. End recording.” A knock on the door of his lab drew his attention and Forge called, “Come in.”

Beast ambled in and closed the door after him before easing into a chair beside the inventor. “I didn’t want to intrude while you were recording your findings, nor did I wish to overhear, but one does hear things. Aliya’s tests have not gone well?”

Forge shook his head slowly. “She’s as crazy as Wade, but she’s nowhere near as strong. I think I’m glad I’m in this reality instead of wherever she’s from. Her Forge wouldn’t be able to touch this shit.”

“One would guess that her Forge wouldn’t know her at all, given the time frame differences. Considering the results of her relationship with Nathan Dayspring, I would estimate no one could touch the infection successfully.” Beast put a hand on Forge’s shoulder. “I’m glad you’re in this reality, too, my friend. At least we have a chance.”

“Yeah, but a chance at what?” Forge asked gloomily and glared at one of the infected rats as it scrabbled at the glass of its cage. “This is some seriously nasty shit, Hank. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about what might happen if one of these fuckers gets loose in the school. Sure, I’m closer to a cure for Nathan, but at what cost?”

“So far,” Henry murmured, “only your peace of mind.”

Forge huffed out a breath. “God, I don’t want to be around when that bill comes due.”

***

"Here yet?" Fugue lumbered to the window and cupped his hands against the glass before peering out onto the street. 

"Not yet," Sam chuckled. 

"When?" Fugue grumbled. "Pasta getting cold."

"It's fine," Sam said and bumped his shoulder against his boyfriend's side. "The sauce is still simmering and that'll warm up the pasta quick."

"Gummy," Fugue said, flicking his long tongue against his teeth in disgust. They stood in silence for a few moments, peering out into the twilight evening before Fugue combed at his fur with his fingers. "Look okay?"

"You look awesome." Sam reached up and pulled Fugue down so he could kiss him. "Stop fussing," he grinned. "Or I'm gonna think you're more excited about Scott coming than being with me."

Fugue grunted and wrapped his long, shaggy arms around Sam to snuggle him close. "Silly," he snorted in Sam's ear. "Cyclops arrow-straight. Fugue gay as fuck." Sam started to giggle and Fugue grinned before kissing him. "Love you," he whispered. 

"I love you, too," Sam murmured back. 

"You two really are adorable," Aliya said as she came inside and shook her wings to settle the feathers again. Both mutants turned to make faces at her and she grinned. "Dinner smells awesome. Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Not anymore," Sam said. He turned around in Fugue's arms and the furry mutant hugged him, letting his chin rest on top of Sam's head. "Where you been? We coulda used someone to cut veggies."

"Am I safe with a knife?" Aliya asked and wiggled her fingers playfully at them. "I might stab your eye out."

"More likely to clip off own fingers," Fugue shot back and Aliya laughed. The sound of a car rolling to a stop carried up from the street below and the three of them rushed to peek outside again. "That's Dopinder's cab," Aliya said. "They're here."

Fugue's fur fluffed up in excitement and he rushed back to the kitchen to take the sauce off the burner. Sam shook his head in amusement. "You'd think he never had company."

"He's never had a home," Aliya said in a soft voice and Sam looked up, blinking in surprise. "He's never had a place that was his to show someone."

"Oh." Sam shifted his feet and hugged his arms around his middle. "I suppose I hadn't thought of it like that."

Aliya patted his shoulder. "It's okay. He's got it now and that goes a long way. He's got you and that is huge." Sam smiled and wandered into the kitchen after Fugue while Aliya looked back down on the street. Dopinder and Scott were getting out of the cab and Jane appeared to help them carry his bags inside. Wade was present, but there was no sign of Nathan from this angle. There was no sign of Domino, either, so Cable's absence wasn't necessarily a statement on Scott's arrival, but Aliya couldn't help but feel like Nathan should have made more of an effort to welcome his father. "Father," she snickered to herself. "Not yet."

"Time travel is weird like that."

Aliya jumped and turned to find Nathan standing just behind her, Cecil riding his shoulder with a contented look on his pointed face. "Is time travel why you're up here instead of down there?"

"Sort of." Nathan shrugged just enough to keep from knocking the rat from his shoulder. Cecil dug his little claws into the seams of Nathan's metallic arm. "When I knew Slym, he didn't have memories of me. At least, he never admitted to having a memory of my having been around when he was in his twenties. Neither did Redd. Redd I can see having been able to hide it from me, but Slym... not so much."

Aliya crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back against the windowsill, fanning her wings to the sides. "You're worried about the future you in this scenario," she said quietly. Nathan nodded without meeting her eyes and she sighed. "Nathan, you have to accept that the future has already been changed. Your future--my future, for that matter--the lives we lived are not going to play out the same way here because we have changed things. X-Force probably didn't exist in our futures' pasts. You and Wade saved lives with Russell. Every element after that moment is going to be different."

"So I might not even be born," Nathan said with a shrug, "let alone taken forward in time to be raised by Scott Summers and Jean Grey. Madelyn Pryor may never come to be." When Aliya nodded, he glowered down at his hands. "But I saw Tyler's bear change. The bear that I brought back with me from my subjective history changed when Wade stopped Russell." He glared up at her. "How is that possible if this history's future doesn't also contain me? And you?" 

Aliya gave him a lopsided grin. "Technically, it does. We're just older."

"So, if we had a kid now," Nathan said with a challenge in his voice, "he would be Tyler?"

Aliya sighed and looked away from him. "No. Obviously. Any child we were to have now would be unique to this time stream. That's just how things work."

Nathan stared at the top of her head for a moment, his hands opening and closing restlessly. He took two sudden steps forward, tipped her chin up so she was looking at him and then kissed her. Aliya gasped, then threw her arms around him. They stayed locked in their embrace, lost in their kiss until Nathan finally exhaled through his nose and dropped his chin to rest his forehead against hers. "I miss my wife," he whispered. "I miss my son."

"You'll always miss them," Aliya whispered back, her eyes closed and tears on her eyelashes. "The only thing we can do is keep moving forward. Time is flexible, but perspective isn't. We still have to keep moving forward through our own personal time." She leaned against his chest and Nathan shuddered out a breath before he kissed the top of her head, taking a deep breath of the scent of her hair.

"I could love you," he murmured.

"You could," Aliya said and smiled, "but I would still never be Hope." Nathan shivered and she stroked a hand down his cheek. "You have to let her go. Either let her go or find some way to repair your equipment and go back. Appeal to the power of the narrator and go home."

"You think she'd let me?"

Aliya grinned. "Ask her and see."

***

Would you?

_Is that what you really want? You always had that option. You could have let Wade die and gone home. You chose not to. So what do you really want, Nathan?_

I don't know. I've seen enough now to believe that every world needs a Deadpool. Who am I to sacrifice this world's Deadpool for my own family?

_Technically, this world has a Deadpool._

But she belongs to another world. She's an extra.

_Not anymore._

...what do you mean?

_I mean that when you made your decisions and Aliya made hers, you both became part of this world. The one I write and control. The one where you live now. If you really want to go home, I can send you home. I can break all kinds of rules because it's my world. But what do you want more? Do you want what you had? Or do you want what you know is coming?_

About that. Is any portion of that negotiable?

_Always._

So... babies yes, slimy alien sex no?

_Aww, really? It squicks you out that bad?_

Yeah, I've kind of got some autonomy issues. If I'm having sex with someone, I'd rather it just be the two of us without any hitchhikers. 

_But you're still good with Jinx, right?_

Oh, yeah. She's great. Just... no symbiote.

_Okay, deal. I'll find a way to get my kink off somewhere else on that one. And you're okay staying?_

...Yeah. I think so. It feels weird, though, choosing to stay for a story instead of going home to what I left to create. I left to fix things. I left so Hope and Tyler could live, with the intention of coming back to them and spending their lives with them. Sometimes, I forget them and that scares me. I'll wake up next to Jane and Neena and it's like that's the only life I've ever had. I look forward to what you've been working on and it's the only way my life would have gone. Not... teaching my kid to use his powers or helping my wife navigate the world that hates her wings. That's all stuff that's gone. Nostalgia for what never happened.

_I think they call that regret._

Maybe. Hey, Linn?

_Don't. I can still strip you of your consciousness. I can still make myself a weird dream you had._

You wouldn't, though.

_I've done it before, I can do it again._

But not to me.

_No. Not to you. There's a first time for everything._

If you do... give it to Wade or Aliya. Please? 

_You won't know what I do with it._

But they will. 

_... All right._

Thank you.

***

"Happy?"

Nathan looked at Aliya and his eyes scanned her familiar face with its unfamiliar scars. Slowly, he let a smile creep over his face. "Yeah," he said. "I think I am."

"Dinner's ready!" Sam's voice echoed from the other room. 

"Just in time," grinned Aliya and Nathan just chuckled and shook his head.


End file.
